How to tell a partner you have an STD (and who can help)

Telling a partner is often the hardest part of a positive result. It's worth doing. Your partner can get tested and treated, and you're less likely to get the same infection back after your own treatment. You have more options than a face-to-face talk, and some leave your name out. This is general information, not medical advice.

Key points

• CDC tells clinicians to encourage everyone diagnosed with an STI to tell their partners and urge them to get checked and treated.
• You can ask a clinician or the health department to notify partners for you. CDC says staff must never reveal who you are.
• In most areas, health departments routinely offer this for infectious syphilis and new HIV diagnoses. CDC says relatively few do it routinely for chlamydia or gonorrhea.
• With expedited partner therapy, a partner gets medicine for chlamydia or gonorrhea without an exam first. CDC lists it as permissible in 49 states.
• TellYourPartner.org and STDcheck send a text for you, and both say it doesn't show who sent it.

Which partners to tell

CDC's treatment guidelines set a look-back period for each infection:

• Chlamydia and gonorrhea. Anyone you had sex with in the 60 days before your symptoms started or before your diagnosis. CDC says to include your most recent partner even if that was longer ago.
• Syphilis. For primary, secondary or early latent syphilis, CDC says partners from the 90 days before your diagnosis should be treated even if their blood test is negative.
• Trichomoniasis. Current partners. CDC says they should be treated too.
• Herpes. CDC says partners of someone with symptomatic genital herpes "can benefit from evaluation and counseling."
• HIV. In most areas, health departments routinely offer partner services after a new HIV diagnosis. If the exposure was in the last 72 hours, see the PEP note at the end of this guide.

Telling a partner yourself

CDC's guidelines encourage telling partners in person or by phone, email or text. Pick the way you can manage. A few things help:

• Say it plainly. Name the infection, say you're getting treated, and say they should get tested and treated too. For example: "I tested positive for chlamydia and I'm being treated. You should get tested and treated as well. Here's where you can test."
• Give them something to read. CDC says written information can increase how many partners get treated. Our test pages, such as chlamydia testing, explain each test.
• Expect that they may feel fine. Virginia's health department notes that STDs often show no signs or symptoms, so a partner without symptoms still needs a test.
• Bring your main partner to treatment if you can. CDC advises clinicians to have patients bring their primary partner when they come back for treatment, so both can be treated at once.

If you're afraid of how a partner will react, you don't have to tell them yourself. CDC's guidelines make an exception when telling a partner could put you at risk of violence. Virginia's health department says its staff can help you make a plan and refer you to organizations that specialize in domestic violence.

Letting the health department tell them

CDC's guidelines say you can authorize a medical provider or public health professional to notify your partners. Health departments do this through trained staff, often called disease intervention specialists or partner services specialists.

CDC's partner services recommendations say that when staff notify partners, "the identity of the index patient must never be revealed." The same recommendations say partner services should be free for you and your partners. Health departments put it in plainer words:

• New York State: "We will never tell your partner about you, when you were tested, or when they may have been exposed."
• Virginia: "Your name and identity are never shared with your partners."

A partner may still work it out, especially if you're their only partner. Virginia says that "the health department will not confirm this information." Virginia also offers a middle option, where you tell the partner with a counselor there to help and answer questions.

What's available depends on the infection. CDC says most health departments routinely try to offer partner services to people with infectious syphilis or a new HIV diagnosis, but relatively few do so routinely for chlamydia, gonorrhea or trichomoniasis. For those, ask the clinician who treats you or your local health department what they offer.

Not sure a call from the health department is real? New York State says you can ask to see an ID badge in person or ask for the worker's supervisor on the phone.

Expedited partner therapy

With expedited partner therapy, or EPT, the clinician who treats your chlamydia or gonorrhea gives you medicine or a prescription to pass to your partner. The partner doesn't need an exam first. CDC calls provider-assisted referral, where a provider or the health department notifies partners, the best strategy, but says it "is not available to most patients with gonorrhea or chlamydial infection because of resource limitations." CDC has concluded that EPT is a useful option.

CDC's legal status map, last updated July 1, 2026, lists EPT as permissible in 49 states and potentially allowable in 1. Our state testing pages show the EPT status for each state we cover. For trichomoniasis, CDC says EPT "might have a role" where state law allows it.

CDC says the medicine should come with written information for your partner about the infection and possible side effects.

Text and email services

Some websites will send the message for you.

• TellYourPartner.org is run by a group of HIV and STI prevention organizations and presented by the National Coalition of STD Directors. It's free and sends a text. The site says the text doesn't reveal who sent it, and that the step where you confirm you're a real person, with a code sent to your phone, doesn't reveal your identity either. It also warns that if your partner has only had sex with you, they'll likely know the text came from you.
• STDcheck, an online testing company whose prices we compare, has a tool that sends a text or email. STDcheck says your name is never shown and the message "cannot be traced back to the sender." It asks people to use it only to alert partners who may be at risk.

CDC's treatment guidelines call notification through these sites "better than no notification at all." Because it's unclear how many partners get tested and treated after such a message, CDC still encourages telling partners directly or letting a provider or health department do it. Virginia's health department notes that its HIV and STD programs don't send texts like these, so a partner who gets one shouldn't assume it came from the health department.

When partners should get tested and treated

• As soon as possible. For chlamydia, gonorrhea and early syphilis, CDC recommends presumptive treatment for partners, which means treating them without waiting for a test result.
• No sex until everyone is treated. For chlamydia, CDC says to wait 7 days after single-dose treatment or until a 7-day course is finished, and until all partners have been treated, to avoid passing the infection back and forth.
• Testing too soon can miss an infection. If your partner wants a test as well, our when-to-test calculator shows when each test can pick it up.
• HIV exposure in the last 72 hours. CDC says PEP, medicine that prevents HIV, must be started within 72 hours, so your partner should ask an urgent care, emergency room or their own doctor about it now.

If your partner wants to test privately, these are the lowest current prices we track:

Our free testing guide shows how to find a free or low-cost clinic. If you're still sorting out your own treatment, start with what to do after a positive result.