GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
Connecticut replaced its old paternity statutes (formerly Chapter 815y) with the Connecticut Parentage Act, Public Act 21-15, effective January 1, 2022, and codified principally at C.G.S. §§46b-450 et seq. It now governs determinations of parentage. The current framework is broader than the one it replaced — it covers biological, adoptive, de facto, and assisted-reproduction parentage, and it applies regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender.
By acknowledgment. A voluntary acknowledgment of parentage, signed and filed, has the force of a court judgment.
By presumption, including through marriage or through holding a child out as one’s own in defined circumstances.
By court adjudication, where parentage is disputed, including through genetic testing.
Through assisted reproduction or surrogacy, under provisions written for those circumstances.
An acknowledgment is not a form to sign casually. It carries the legal effect of a judgment of parentage.
The acknowledgment-of-parentage provisions are at C.G.S. §§46b-476 through 46b-487.
Either signer may rescind, for any reason, before the earlier of 60 days after the acknowledgment takes effect, or the date of the first court or administrative hearing in a proceeding about the child.
The acknowledgment can be challenged only on the grounds of fraud, duress, or a material mistake of fact, and the person challenging it carries the burden. There is no outside deadline on such a challenge — but the court may set an acknowledgment aside only where doing so serves the child’s best interest.
That last limit matters. A man who learns years later that he is not a child’s biological father does not automatically get the acknowledgment undone, because the question is not only what is true but what serves a child who has had a parent for years.
Understand what you are signing before you sign it. The 60-day window closes quickly, and the obligations that follow last to adulthood.
Establishing parentage is the gateway to custody, parenting time, and support. It is also the gateway for a child’s rights — inheritance, benefits, and medical history.
Unmarried parents get custody orders on the same standard as married ones — but parentage may need to be established first.
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