Statistics on Divorces and Dissolutions in 2025 Published

The Office for National Statistics has published statistics on the number of divorces and civil partnership dissolutions in 2025.

There were 105,961 legal partnership dissolutions in England and Wales in 2025, comprising 105,002 divorces and 959 civil partnership dissolutions. This is similar to the figures for 2023 and 2024 but lower than the peak levels between the 1980s and the early 2000s, when there were around 150,000 divorces per year. The figures include nullity orders, of which there were 301 in 2025.

The divorce rate for opposite-sex couples was 8.4 per 1,000 opposite-sex married people, while the divorce rate for same-sex couples was 19.5 per 1,000 same-sex married people. The same-sex divorce rate has started to stabilise following increases between 2015 and 2021.

The average duration of legal partnerships at divorce or dissolution increased for most partnership types in 2025. The median duration of marriages ending in divorce was 13.0 years for opposite-sex couples, the longest since 1963, when statistics began to be collected. This continues the long-term trend of marriages lasting longer, with the median duration increasing from a record low of 8.9 years in 1985. Record highs were also seen for same-sex civil partnerships: median durations at dissolution were 13.7 years for male couples and 13.6 years for female couples.

Of all legal partnership dissolutions in 2025, 94.2 per cent were granted under the new legislation introduced on 6 April 2022, following the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020.