The objective o/the study was to examine the underlying factors 0/ unm et need .Ii)!"rncontraception among currently married couples in West Belessa Woreda. A communit)'rnbased cross sectional study was made. A multistage sampling procedure was carried Ol/trnto interview 662 couples in th e study area. The study was designed in such a way that thernvarious demographic, socioeconomic and family planning variables have effects onrnunmet need lor contraception. Demographic, socioeconomic and family planningrnvariables were used as explanatory variables and the dependent variable is unmet needrnlor contraception. In order to examine, then, the effect 0/ these variables, th e studyrnutilized both descriptive and multi-variate analytical techniques.rnThe results indicated that around 31% o/wives and 17% 0/ husbands have not knownrnany family planning method. 51% 0/ wives and 18% 0/ husbands knew utmost twornmethods, and 18. 3% o/wives and 66% o/husbands knew at least three contraceptivernmethods. Around 65% 0/ wives and 53% 0/ husbands have never discuss ed with partnersrnissues concerning family planning. It is also indicated that 69% o/wives and 56.4% 0/rnhusbands have never discussed about family planning methods with health extensionrnworkers. 31% 0/ wives and 43.6% 0/ husbands have discussed with health extensionrnworkers at least once in the past three months about contraceptive methods. Concerningrnth e need status lor contraception, 39.5 and 47 percent 0/ women and men have unmetrnneed for contraception, and 29 and 28.5 percent o/women and men have met their needrnrespectively. The minimum and maximum couples' unmet needs lor contraception werernfound to be 29.5 and 57.5 percent respectively. According to the result o/logisticrnregression, among the variables, number o/living children, spousal communication andrndiscussion with health extension workers about/amily planning methods were found to bernsignificantly affecting couples lInmet need/or contraception.rnIt is there/ore, recommended th at raising th e status 0/ women through education,rnpromoting communication between couples and discussion with health extension workersrnabout/amily planning are the prime importance to erode barriers to use contraceptivernmethods.