The rise of cohabitation is one of the most noticeable changes in partnership behavior in the past several decades, present throughout Europe, with great variation of prevalence across countries. Until now, the extent of consensual unions in Serbia has not been known due to the lack of data, except some very scarce information emanated from a very few surveys. The 2011 Census, for the first time, included the question on the de facto marital status. This enables insight into the prevalence of consensual unions, as well as on the characteristics of union members. The paper analyzes frequency of consensual unions, as well as characteristics of persons living in them, according to the sex, age, education, legal marital status, ethnicity, religious affiliation and type of settlement. Most of the consideration has been given to the regional level (NUTS 2). The paper also analyzes families of cohabiting couples with and without children. This is possible because the data for the families of cohabiting couples without children and cohabiting couples with children were shown separately for the first time in the 2011 Census. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47006: Investigation of demographic phenomena in the function of public policies in Serbia]