Georgia Advance Directive and Living Will: Forms, Rules, and How to Complete Yours
Georgia folded the living will and the health care power of attorney into one form in 2007. Here is the current statutory form, the witness rules almost everyone gets wrong, and how to complete yours for free.
Georgia uses a single statutory form, the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care, created by the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act (O.C.G.A. §§ 31-32-1 through 31-32-14; the form itself appears at § 31-32-4). It requires two qualified adult witnesses, needs no notary, and is available free from Georgia's Division of Aging Services.
If you searched for a Georgia living will, this is still the right page. Georgia retired its separate living will and durable power of attorney for health care in 2007 and folded both jobs into this one combined document. This guide explains what the form does, exactly how to complete and witness it under Georgia's unusually flexible signing rules, the traps that catch people, and what to do with the document once it is signed.
In this guide:
Georgia at a glance: the fact box
What the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care is
How to complete the form, step by step
Georgia's unusual witnessing rules, stated precisely
Why the official form beats reading the law
The guardian nomination hiding in Part Three
Living will vs advance directive vs health care power of attorney in Georgia
What to do after signing
Where the directive fits in a complete plan
Frequently asked questions
Georgia at a glance: the fact box
Item | What Georgia requires |
|---|---|
Official form | Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care, one combined document, published free by the Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services |
Statute | Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act, O.C.G.A. §§ 31-32-1 to 31-32-14 (the form at § 31-32-4, execution and witnesses at § 31-32-5) |
Witnesses | Two adults of sound mind, 18 or older, with strict disqualifications (your agent, heirs, and your care team cannot witness) |
Notary | Not required; the official form states it does not need to be notarized |
State registry | None. Georgia operates no advance directive registry |
Where to keep it | Original somewhere your agent knows about; copies to your agent, back-up agent, doctor, and hospital, since there is no registry to do it for you |
What the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care is
Until 2007, Georgia worked the way many states still do: a living will held your treatment wishes, and a separate durable power of attorney for health care named a person to speak for you. The Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Act changed that. For any new document signed since then, both jobs live in one combined form, the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care.
The official version is published by the Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services, and it is free. It walks you through four parts. Part One names your health care agent, the person who makes medical decisions for you when you cannot. Part Two records your treatment preferences, which is the living will function: the care you do and do not want in situations such as a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness. Part Three is optional and lets you nominate a guardian in case a court ever needs to appoint one. Part Four is where you and your witnesses sign.
You can complete the parts that matter to you. The form is designed so that naming an agent, stating treatment preferences, or doing both are all valid choices. Most Georgians complete Part One and Part Two together, so their agent has both the authority to decide and a written record of what they would have chosen.
How to complete the Georgia form, step by step
The whole process can be done at a kitchen table in under an hour. Here is the sequence.
Get the official form. Download it free from the Division of Aging Services at aging.georgia.gov, which also publishes a plain-language guide alongside it. You do not need a lawyer or a paid template service for the standard document.
Choose your health care agent (Part One). Pick someone who knows your values, can ask doctors hard questions, and will hold the line under family pressure. Name a back-up agent as well, in case your first choice is unavailable. Talk to both of them before you write their names down; an agent who learns about the job in a crisis is an agent set up to fail. And plan ahead for signing day: neither your agent nor your back-up can act as a witness, so you will need two other adults.
Record your treatment preferences (Part Two). This is the section doing the work a living will used to do. It asks what treatment you want if you are near the end of life, including choices about life support and artificial nutrition and hydration. Take it slowly, and use the space for your own words where the form allows it. A sentence in your own voice about what matters to you can guide your agent better than any checkbox.
Consider Part Three, the guardian nomination. Optional, and covered in its own section below.
Sign before two qualified witnesses (Part Four). No notary is needed. Georgia's witnessing mechanics are more flexible than most states', but the witness eligibility rules are strict, so check the list below before anyone picks up a pen.
Who can witness, and who cannot
Each witness must be an adult, 18 or older, and of sound mind.
A witness cannot be your named health care agent or your back-up agent.
A witness cannot be anyone who would knowingly inherit from you or otherwise gain financially from your death.
A witness cannot be anyone directly involved in your health care.
At most one of your two witnesses may be an employee, agent, or medical staff member of the hospital, nursing home, or other facility where you are receiving care, and even that witness cannot be directly involved in your care.
Practical translation: a neighbour, a colleague, or a friend makes an ideal witness. Your spouse and children usually do not, because anyone who stands to inherit is disqualified. If you are signing in a hospital or nursing home, make sure at least one witness comes from outside the building.
Georgia's unusual witnessing rules, stated precisely
Most states require the classic tableau: you and both witnesses around one table, everyone watching everyone sign. Georgia does not, and because the flexibility is unusual, it is misstated all over the internet. Under O.C.G.A. § 31-32-5, the mechanics work like this:
Your witnesses do not have to be together. Each can sign at a different time and place.
Your witnesses do not have to watch you sign. You can sign first and later acknowledge to a witness that the signature is yours.
You must see each witness sign. The flexibility runs one way only. The witnesses can miss your signing; you cannot miss theirs.
The safe path is still the simple one: gather both witnesses, sign, watch them sign, done in five minutes. But if circumstances make that impossible, say one witness can only visit tomorrow, Georgia's rules accommodate it. Just hold onto the non-negotiable piece: you, the person signing the directive, must personally watch both witnesses add their signatures.
The law is hard to read for free, so use the official form
Here is a quirk few guides mention: Georgia does not freely host the text of its own code. The Official Code of Georgia Annotated is published through LexisNexis, so the statute behind this document, O.C.G.A. title 31, chapter 32, is not one click away the way statutes are in many other states. For most people this does not matter, because the state publishes something more useful anyway: the official form and its companion guide from the Division of Aging Services. Treat those as your primary reference, and be wary of third-party sites paraphrasing what Georgia law says. Some of them still describe the pre-2007 rules, complete with a separate living will that no longer exists for new signings.
The guardian nomination hiding in Part Three
Part Three of the Georgia form is easy to skim past, and it deserves a pause. It lets you nominate the person you would want as your guardian if a court ever had to appoint one. Guardianship is a far bigger intervention than an advance directive: a court-appointed guardian can end up making broad decisions about your life, not just your medical care. Naming your preferred person in advance puts your voice into that court decision before you are unable to speak. Many people nominate the same person they chose as health care agent, which keeps authority consistent instead of splitting it between two people who may disagree. Part Three is optional, and skipping it does not weaken the rest of the document.
Living will vs advance directive vs health care power of attorney in Georgia
In most states these are two or three overlapping documents. In Georgia, since 2007, they are one, and the vocabulary maps like this:
Living will. No longer a separate document for new signings in Georgia. Its job, recording your treatment wishes, is done by Part Two (Treatment Preferences) of the combined form.
Durable power of attorney for health care. Also retired as a separate new document. Its job, appointing a decision-maker, is done by Part One (Health Care Agent).
Advance Directive for Health Care. The current combined document that does both, plus the optional guardian nomination.
One important reassurance: if you or a parent signed a Georgia living will or durable power of attorney for health care before 2007, it remains legally effective. You are not required to redo anything. That said, many people choose to replace older paperwork with the current combined form, so that doctors see a format they recognise instantly and the agent's authority and the treatment wishes cannot drift apart across two ageing documents. If you want to see how these pieces are usually structured, our living will template guide covers the general shape, and our advance care planning hub walks through the conversations behind the paperwork.
One honest note while you have the pen out. An advance directive protects your medical wishes, and it does that job well. It says nothing about your voice, your stories, or the way you think, and those are the things your family will actually reach for later. Preserving them is a separate, deliberate act, the kind a digital legacy app exists for: building a Persona from your own memories and voice while you can. The form protects your decisions. Only you can preserve the person who made them.
What to do after signing
An advance directive nobody can find at 2 a.m. might as well not exist. Georgia gives you no safety net here: the state operates no advance directive registry, so getting the document into the right hands is entirely on you.
Keep the original somewhere your agent knows about. Not a bank safe deposit box that nobody can open in a crisis.
Give copies to your agent and back-up agent. They are the people who will need to produce it under pressure.
Give a copy to your doctor. Ask for it to be added to your medical record, and bring a copy to any hospital admission.
Tell your family what you decided, and why. The document works best when nobody at the bedside is surprised by it.
Revisit it after big life changes. A serious diagnosis, a marriage or divorce, the death of your agent, or a move to another state are all reasons to reread and, if needed, redo it.
If you move to Georgia with a directive signed elsewhere, or take this document to another state, have it reviewed there. States differ on witnessing and terminology, as this page itself demonstrates, and a quick check beats an argument in a hospital corridor.
Where the directive fits in a complete plan
The Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care settles one question: who decides about your medical care, and by what lights. A complete plan answers a few more. A will settles your property. Your online accounts, and who may lawfully reach them, need their own instructions, which our digital will guide for the USA explains. Each document is short on its own; together they spare your family a season of guesswork.
And while you are putting things in order, it is worth putting the irreplaceable things in order too. The paperwork above secures your decisions. Afterlife AI™ preserves the rest: your stories, your voice, the way you answer a question, kept as a Persona your family can return to. Start free: 50 memories, no card.
Frequently asked questions
Does Georgia require a notary for an advance directive?
No. The Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care does not need to be notarized, and the official form says so on its face. What Georgia requires instead is two qualified adult witnesses. Adding a notary does not strengthen the document; the witnesses are what make it valid.
Is a living will the same as an advance directive in Georgia?
In Georgia they are now one document. In 2007 the state retired separate living wills and health care powers of attorney for new signings and combined both functions into the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care. The living will function survives as Part Two of that form, where you record your treatment preferences.
How many witnesses does a Georgia advance directive need?
Two. Each must be 18 or older and of sound mind, and neither can be your health care agent or back-up agent, a person who would knowingly inherit or gain financially from your death, or a person directly involved in your health care. At most one witness may be an employee, agent, or medical staff member of the facility where you are receiving care.
Do my witnesses have to watch me sign in Georgia?
No, and this surprises people. Georgia lets each witness sign separately, and they do not need to see you sign as long as you acknowledge the signature as yours. The rule that does bind you: you must see both witnesses sign. When in doubt, do it the traditional way, with everyone in one room.
Is my old Georgia living will from before 2007 still valid?
Yes. Living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care validly executed before the 2007 law remain effective. Many people still replace them with the current combined form so doctors see one familiar document rather than two older ones, but that is a choice, not a requirement.
Does Georgia have an advance directive registry?
No. Georgia operates no state registry, so no one will find your directive unless you distribute it yourself. Keep the original where your agent can reach it, give copies to your agent, back-up agent, and doctor, and ask that it be added to your medical record.
Where can I get the official Georgia advance directive form for free?
From the Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services, which publishes the official form and a companion guide on its website at aging.georgia.gov. It costs nothing, and you do not need a lawyer or a paid template service to complete the standard form.
Can my spouse or my children witness my Georgia advance directive?
Usually not. Georgia disqualifies any witness who would knowingly inherit from you or otherwise gain financially from your death, which rules out most spouses and children. Choose adults with no stake in your estate, such as friends, neighbours, or colleagues, and remember that your named agent and back-up agent cannot witness either.
Sources
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Laws change. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in Georgia.