Spain recorded 83,683 marital break-ups in 2025, 2.7% fewer than a year earlier. Shared custody of children has now overtaken sole custody awarded to mothers.
The National Statistics Institute confirms that 2025 was, once again, a year of declining marital break-ups. A total of 83,683 proceedings were recorded, including divorces, separations and annulments, with divorces accounting for 96.5% of the total (80,785 cases), separations for 3.4% (2,872) and annulments a negligible 0.1% (27). Both divorces and separations fell compared with 2024, by 2.7% and 20.3% respectively.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Most break-ups were settled amicably: 80.5% of divorces were uncontested, compared with 19.5% that did go to court because of disagreement between the parties. Looking at the route chosen to formalise them, 59.3% were processed by court judgment, 24.8% by decree and 15.9% by public deed before a notary, the latter an option that continues to gain ground compared with the previous year.
Of the divorces in 2025, 2,221 involved same-sex couples, 2.7% of the total, with more divorces between women (1,226) than between men (995). Among separations, 80 also involved same-sex couples.
The marriages that ended in divorce in 2025 had lasted an average of 16.2 years, a figure almost identical to that of the previous year. Almost a third of break-ups (31.2%) came after 20 years or more of marriage, while only 3.4% occurred before the couple had spent two years together.
Who is getting divorced, and at what age
The average age of people who divorce continues to rise year after year: 49.1 for men and 46.6 for women in 2025, compared with 46.7 and 44.2 respectively in 2016. The age group with the most divorces, for both men and women, was 40 to 49.
In 80.4% of divorces between people of different sexes, both spouses were Spanish; in 12.1% only one of them had foreign nationality, and in 7.5% both were foreign nationals. Before marrying, the overwhelming majority entered marriage single: only 9.3% of men and 10.1% of women had already been divorced.
Children, custody and maintenance: the figure that is changing most
Almost half of dissolved marriages (47.1%) had no children, either minors or economically dependent adults. Where there were children, the way custody was shared provides the report’s most striking finding: in 50.8% of cases involving minor children, joint custody was chosen, now ahead of the 45.3% granted solely to the mother and the marginal 3.4% awarded to the father. It confirms a trend that has been growing for years and has now reversed the traditional pattern.
As for maintenance payments, child maintenance was set in 53.7% of divorces with children, with payment falling to the father in 52.1% of cases and being shared between both parents in 44.1%. Compensatory maintenance, far less common, was established in 6.4% of divorces, and in 91.4% of those cases it was paid by the husband.
The map: Ceuta in the lead, a tie at the bottom
By region, Ceuta recorded the highest rate of marital break-ups, with 2.5 per 1,000 inhabitants, well above the national average of 1.7. At the other end of the scale, Extremadura and Castile and León share the lowest rate, at 1.4 each.
In comparative terms, relative to the rest of the world Spain is in a fairly healthy position. The following chart compares the number of divorces with the number of marriages in a given year (the ratio between the crude divorce rate and the crude marriage rate). That is, if in a certain year there are 500 divorces and 1,000 marriages in a given area, the ratio would be one divorce for every two marriages, or 50%.
The figures correspond to the latest year available for each country. For example, the data for Portugal are from 2020 and those for Germany from 2017.
