diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 653c393b..7a357eed 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ Version 1.7.4.9000
 
 * [#778](https://github.com/tidyverse/lubridate/issues/778) `duration()` works with repeated units
 * [#682](https://github.com/tidyverse/lubridate/issues/682) Fix quarter extraction with small `fiscal_start`s.
+* [#703](https://github.com/tidyverse/lubridate/issues/703) `leap_year()` works with objects supported by `year()`.
 
 
 Version 1.7.4
diff --git a/R/leap-years.r b/R/leap-years.r
index 44763edf..8d22526a 100644
--- a/R/leap-years.r
+++ b/R/leap-years.r
@@ -16,12 +16,10 @@
 #' leap_year(1900) # FALSE
 #' leap_year(2000) # TRUE
 leap_year <- function(date) {
-  recognized <- recognize(date)
-  if (recognized)
-    year <- year(date)
-  else if (all(is.numeric(date)))
+  if (is.numeric(date)) {
     year <- date
-  else
-    stop("unrecognized date format")
+  } else {
+    year <- year(date)
+  }
   (year %% 4 == 0) & ((year %% 100 != 0) | (year %% 400 == 0))
 }
diff --git a/R/util.r b/R/util.r
index eda58349..3968124c 100644
--- a/R/util.r
+++ b/R/util.r
@@ -15,14 +15,6 @@ match_lengths <- function(x, y) {
   list(x, y)
 }
 
-recognize <- function(x) {
-  recognized <- c("POSIXt", "POSIXlt", "POSIXct", "yearmon", "yearqtr", "Date")
-
-  if (all(class(x) %in% recognized))
-    return(TRUE)
-  return(FALSE)
-}
-
 standardise_date_names <- function(x) {
   dates <- c("second", "minute", "hour", "mday", "wday", "yday", "day", "week", "month", "year", "tz")
   y <- gsub("(.)s$", "\\1", x)