Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Netherlands since 1 April The law received royal assent by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on 21 December and took effect on 1 April The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Polling suggests that a significant majority of Dutch people support the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.
The other constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands , Sint Maarten , does not perform or fully recognize same-sex marriages. Unregistered partnerships or informal cohabitation samenwonen occur when a same-sex or opposite-sex couple cohabits but chooses to keep the legal status of their relationship unregistered or informal.
This means all worldwide assets that belong to a single party remain the sole property of the party with no legal entitlement by the other party, whether owned before or acquired during the relationship. The couple can record a contract samenlevingscontract with a notary to receive some limited financial benefits, including for tax and pension purposes.
However, the benefits are limited, e. The Netherlands was one of the first countries in the world to recognise cohabiting same-sex couples by law. The first law recognising the cohabitation of same-sex couples was passed in for the purposes of rent law. Further legislation was passed in to recognise cohabiting couples for the purposes of inheritance tax. The partnerships were meant for same-sex couples as an alternative to marriage , though they can also be entered into by opposite-sex couples, and in fact about one third of the registered partnerships between and were of opposite-sex couples.
Partnerships have become particularly common among Dutch couples, with about 18, new partnerships registered every year. As early as the mid s, a group of gay rights activists, headed by Henk Krol β then editor-in-chief of the Gay Krant β asked the government to allow same-sex couples to marry.
