Only a handful of couples have said “I do” in Germany this year, a record low that the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Thursday.
In 2024 a total of 349 200 marriages were registered. Three‑quarters (79 %) of the 698 400 married people were newly married, meaning they had never been divorced or widowed before. Almost all unions-97 %-were between persons of opposite sex, while slightly under 3 % involved same‑sex partners, a share that has been counted in the statistics since the 2017 law legalising marriage for all.
At the end of the year about 34.6 million adults were married, roughly half of the population aged 18 years and older. That is down from 39.2 million three decades earlier, when 60 % of adults were married. The proportion married is highest in the 65‑to‑69 age group, where more than two‑thirds (66 %) of the 5.3 million people are wed or in a registered partnership.
Conversely, the number of single adults has risen sharply. In 2024, 23.1 million adults were not married, widowed or divorced, compared with 16.0 million in 1994. The share of singles among adults increased from 24 % to more than 33 % over that period.
The trend toward fewer marriages is linked to the fact that people are getting married at older ages. In 2024 the average age at first marriage was 32.9 years for women and 35.3 years for men, compared with 27.1 years and 29.4 years in 1994-a rise of roughly six years for both sexes. Men and women who divorce are also older now. In 2024, the mean age at divorce was 44.6 years for women and 47.6 years for men, up 8.1 and 8.3 years from 1994 (36.5 years and 39.3 years, respectively). Moreover, marriages tend to last longer: the average duration from wedding to divorce was 14.7 years in 2024, versus 12.0 years in 1994.
Divorces in 2024 numbered 129 300, a slight increase of 0.3 % over the previous year, but still the lowest level seen since German reunification.
When we look at marriage rates relative to population, Germany performs slightly above the EU average. In 2023 the country recorded 4.3 marriages per 1 000 residents, just above the EU mean of 4.0. The highest rates were in Romania (5.8), Latvia (5.6) and Hungary (5.2) per 1 000 inhabitants, while Bulgaria (3.4), Italy (3.1) and Slovenia (3.0) were the lowest.