Arkansas Living Will Requirements
Arkansas calls its living will a Declaration, and unlike states that fold the living will and health care power of attorney into one combined form, Arkansas keeps them as two entirely separate legal instruments under two separate statutes: the Declaration under the Arkansas Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act (Arkansas Code Annotated Sections 20-17-201 to 20-17-218), and the agent-designation document, the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, created under the wholly different Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118).
Introduction
Arkansas calls its living will a Declaration, and unlike states that fold the living will and health care power of attorney into one combined form, Arkansas keeps them as two entirely separate legal instruments under two separate statutes: the Declaration under the Arkansas Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act (Arkansas Code Annotated Sections 20-17-201 to 20-17-218), and the agent-designation document, the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, created under the wholly different Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118). At its core, a Declaration is a written statement of the medical treatment you want, or do not want, if you later become seriously ill or injured and cannot speak for yourself. This guide covers the Declaration: what it says, how to sign it, and how Arkansas's own rules on life-sustaining treatment, artificial nutrition and hydration, and pregnancy apply to it. To name a broader health care agent instead, that separate document is covered on the Arkansas Healthcare Power of Attorney page.
Key Things to Know
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In Arkansas, a living will is called a Declaration: your own written statement, made under the Arkansas Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act, of which life-sustaining treatments you want withheld or withdrawn if you become terminally ill or permanently unconscious and cannot communicate. Naming someone to decide for you instead is handled by a separate document, the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, created under the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act.
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A living will is not a last will and testament. A living will governs medical care while you are alive but unable to communicate; a last will and testament governs who inherits your property after you die. Most people preparing one eventually want the other too.
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You can sign your declaration with two competent adult witnesses, have it notarized without witnesses (available for declarations signed on or after July 1, 2017), or execute it to separately satisfy the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act's own requirements.
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Arkansas requires you to address artificial nutrition and hydration as its own separate, initialed choice on the statutory declaration form. It is not folded automatically into your general life-sustaining treatment instruction.
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Arkansas law includes a pregnancy limitation. If your attending physician knows you are pregnant, your declaration is not given effect for as long as the fetus could develop to the point of live birth with continued life-sustaining treatment.
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You can revoke your declaration at any time, in any manner, regardless of your mental or physical condition. Revocation takes effect once you or a witness tells your attending physician or other health care provider.
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Even if you use the declaration's optional proxy alternative instead of stating your own wishes, that appointment stays limited to the single decision of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, not a broader health care agent's authority.
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Arkansas does not have a state-run registry for advance directives. Give copies directly to your physician and to anyone you name as your healthcare proxy or agent.
Key decisions before you file
Before you file a Living Will in Arkansas, a few decisions shape the document: which option to choose and what each one means. The Living Will guide walks through them.
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Arkansas Requirements for Living Will
Arkansas does not have a combined advance directive. Section 20-17-202 governs the Declaration, a stand-alone living will document under the Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act. A separate statute, the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118), governs the general-purpose Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care document. The Declaration also offers its own narrower, optional healthcare proxy appointment limited to life-sustaining treatment decisions.
The Arkansas Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act (Sections 20-17-201 to 20-17-218) is the living-will statute. It is legally distinct from the separate agent-designation document, the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, created under the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118). That Act replaced the former Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Act (formerly Section 20-13-104, repealed effective October 1, 2013) and now supplies shared definitions and default rules for both types of advance directive.
Terminal condition means an incurable and irreversible condition that, without the administration of life-sustaining treatment, will, in the opinion of the attending physician, result in death within a relatively short time. This is one of the two conditions that make a declarant a qualified patient under the Act.
Permanently unconscious means a lasting condition, indefinitely without change, in which thought, feeling, sensations, and awareness of self and environment are absent. This is the second of the two conditions that make a declarant a qualified patient under the Act.
Life-sustaining treatment means any medical procedure or intervention that, when administered to a qualified patient, will serve only to prolong the process of dying or to maintain the patient in a condition of permanent unconsciousness. This definition sets the scope of what a Declaration can direct withheld or withdrawn.
A declaration signed with witnesses (rather than notarized) requires two competent adult witnesses. Neither witness may be the person named as healthcare proxy in the declaration. At least one witness must not be related to the declarant by blood, marriage, or adoption and must not be entitled to any portion of the declarant's estate.
For declarations signed on or after July 1, 2017, Arkansas allows notarization without two witnesses as an alternative valid execution method, alongside the traditional two-witness path and a path that separately satisfies the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act's own requirements.
As an alternative to stating your own treatment wishes, the Declaration's statutory form lets you appoint a healthcare proxy, who then has authority, in consultation with the attending physician, to decide whether life-sustaining treatment should be withheld or withdrawn. This proxy authority is limited to that decision. It is narrower than the general health care decision-making authority created by the separate Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, established under the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118).
Arkansas requires artificial nutrition and hydration to be addressed as a separate, specifically initialed choice on the statutory declaration form, distinct from the general life-sustaining treatment instruction: the declarant may separately choose whether nutrition may be withheld, and whether hydration may be withheld, after consultation with the attending physician. These directives apply only to declarations executed on or after July 16, 2003; earlier declarations remain valid without them.
A declaration is not given effect for a qualified patient known by the attending physician to be pregnant, for as long as it is possible the fetus could develop to the point of live birth with continued application of life-sustaining treatment.
The Act does not affect an attending physician's or other health care provider's responsibility to provide treatment, including nutrition or hydration, for a patient's comfort or the alleviation of pain. This right to comfort care applies regardless of the life-sustaining treatment choices stated in the declaration.
A declaration may be revoked at any time and in any manner by the declarant, regardless of the declarant's mental or physical condition. The revocation becomes effective once it is communicated to the attending physician or other health care provider by the declarant or a witness to the revocation.
A declaration under this Act is treated as a written advance directive under the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act. Whether an attending physician or other health care provider may decline to comply with a declaration, and any resulting duty to transfer the patient to another provider, is governed by that Act's compliance provisions.
A person who carries out a declaration in the absence of knowledge of its revocation is not subject to civil or criminal liability or discipline for unprofessional conduct. A physician or other health care provider whose actions under the Act are consistent with reasonable medical standards is likewise protected from liability.
A declaration executed in another state in compliance with that state's law, or with Arkansas law, is validly executed for purposes of the Arkansas Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act.
The Revised Arkansas Anatomical Gift Act lets you authorize organ and tissue donation separately from your life-sustaining treatment wishes.
Federal law requires Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities to inform patients in writing of their right under Arkansas law to make an advance directive, including a declaration stating their own treatment wishes.
Federal HIPAA regulations govern how your healthcare proxy or health care agent can be authorized to access your protected health information once that authority is in effect. This authorization supports the decision-maker side of your planning; it does not change your own treatment-wishes instructions in the declaration.
A general-purpose health care agent, someone who can make health care decisions for you beyond life-sustaining treatment, is created under a wholly separate statute, the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118), which replaced the former Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Act (formerly Section 20-13-104, repealed effective October 1, 2013), not under the Declaration covered on this page. That Act has its own execution requirements: signed by the principal, or by someone at the principal's direction and in the principal's presence, and attested to and subscribed by two or more competent adult witnesses. A power of attorney for health care may voluntarily include the Section 20-17-202 declaration inside it, but the two remain legally distinct instruments. See Arkansas Healthcare Power of Attorney.
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Check my Living WillFrequently Asked Questions
In Arkansas, a living will is called a Declaration, created under the Arkansas Rights of the Terminally Ill or Permanently Unconscious Act (Arkansas Code Annotated Sections 20-17-201 to 20-17-218). It lets you state directly whether you want life-sustaining treatment withheld or withdrawn if an attending physician determines you have a terminal condition or are permanently unconscious. Arkansas's own Healthcare Decisions Act (Section 20-6-101 et seq.) also uses the term living will and ties it back to this same Declaration.
Your Arkansas living will, the Declaration under Sections 20-17-201 to 20-17-218, states your own life-sustaining treatment wishes directly, in your own words, taking effect once a physician confirms a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness. The health care power of attorney is a separate document under a separate statute, the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act (Sections 20-6-101 to 20-6-118), that instead names someone else to decide health care matters generally on your behalf. You sign either one alone; they are not the same instrument. See Arkansas Healthcare Power of Attorney for that separate agent-designation document.
These control completely different things at completely different times. A living will, your Arkansas Declaration, states your medical treatment wishes while you are alive but unable to communicate. A last will and testament says who inherits your property after you die, and only takes legal effect at death. Having one does not replace the other. Most people completing an Arkansas Declaration for end-of-life planning also want a separate Arkansas Last Will and Testament for their estate.
Yes. Unlike states that fold artificial nutrition and hydration into a general treatment instruction, Arkansas's statutory declaration form gives you separate choices to initial: whether nutrition may be withheld after consultation with your attending physician, whether hydration may be withheld after consultation with your attending physician, or whether either may not be withheld. These directives apply to declarations executed on or after July 16, 2003, under Arkansas Code Annotated Section 20-17-202.
It can. Arkansas Code Annotated Section 20-17-206(c) says a declaration is not given effect for a patient known by the attending physician to be pregnant, for as long as the fetus could develop to the point of live birth with continued life-sustaining treatment.
Yes, for declarations signed on or after July 1, 2017. Arkansas Code Annotated Section 20-17-202 lets you choose notarization without two witnesses as one valid execution path, alongside traditional two-witness signing and execution that separately satisfies the Arkansas Healthcare Decisions Act.
Yes, but stating your own wishes directly is the declaration's main path; naming a proxy is only the fallback for someone who would rather not spell out each treatment choice themselves. Used this way, the proxy's authority stays limited to the single decision of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, nothing broader. For a decision-maker with broader authority, use the separate Arkansas Healthcare Power of Attorney document.
No. Arkansas does not have a central state registry for living wills (declarations). Rather than registering it with a state office, give copies directly to your attending physician, your healthcare proxy or agent, and close family, so your wishes can be found when needed.
Yes. Arkansas Code Annotated Section 20-17-212 recognizes a declaration executed in another state as validly executed here, as long as it complied with that state's law or with Arkansas's own law.