Marriage Divorce Rate in Australia (2025 ABS Figures)

As of the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s crude divorce rate is 2.2 per 1,000 people aged 16 and over. That works out to 49,158 divorces granted in 2025, up 4.1 per cent on the 47,216 granted in 2024 (ABS Marriages and Divorces, Australia, 2025). It ticked up on the year before, but it is still well down on where it sat two decades ago. And no, it is not “half of marriages”. That figure is a myth, and the Australian data has never shown it.

Here is what the current numbers actually are, what they mean, and what the long-run trend really looks like.

What the current numbers show

The 2025 ABS release, published on 28 July 2026, is the most recent full-year picture:

• 49,158 divorces granted, up 4.1 per cent on 2024
• Crude divorce rate of 2.2 per 1,000 people aged 16 and over, up from 2.1
• 118,804 marriages registered, down 1.7 per cent, and a crude marriage rate of 5.3 per 1,000, down from 5.5

The “crude rate” means divorces measured against the population aged 16 and over, not against married couples. That is the denominator the ABS uses, so the figure tells you how common divorce is across the adult population rather than the odds for any one couple. Divorces themselves are granted by the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, which is where the count comes from.

What percentage of marriages end in divorce?

This is where the numbers get misread. The crude rate of 2.2 per 1,000 is not the share of marriages that end in divorce. It measures divorces against everyone aged 16 and over, married or not. So it tells you how common divorce is across the adult population, not the odds for any one couple.

The share of marriages that eventually end in divorce is a separate measure, and it is well below half. The Australian Institute of Family Studies tracks the lifetime probability of divorce (AIFS, Divorces in Australia).

The lifetime share is commonly put at roughly one in three, with studies landing in the 30 to 40 per cent range. Either way it is well short of the “half of marriages” myth. The exact figure shifts between studies and marriage cohorts, so treat any single percentage as an estimate.

You will also see it said that second marriages break down more often than first ones. That may be so, but the ABS does not publish a reliable figure for it, so treat any hard number you see quoted for second marriages with caution.

Is Australia’s divorce rate rising or falling?

Both, depending on the window you look at. The 2025 figure is up on 2024, and it lands close to 2022, when 49,241 divorces were granted. Zoom out and the direction is clearly down: the rate was 3.3 per 1,000 in 2005, and it peaked at 4.6 per 1,000 in 1976. So a single year’s rise sits inside a long decline, and one year does not make a trend.

What has not changed is the law. Australia has had no-fault divorce for about 50 years. Under the Family Law Act 1975, a divorce is granted on a single ground: that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, shown by 12 months of separation (s 48). No one has to prove blame or fault. So neither the long decline nor the recent uptick has anything to do with divorce getting harder or easier to obtain.

The long-run decline is about who is marrying, and when. People are marrying later in life. Couples live together for longer before they marry, so more relationships that would once have become short marriages now end before a wedding ever happens. And economic and housing pressure keeps some separated couples living under the same roof for longer, which delays the paperwork even when the relationship is over.

How long do marriages last before separation?

For couples who do split, the marriage lasts longer than most people expect. The median duration from marriage to separation is 9.4 years, up from 9.3 years in 2024 and 8.8 years in 2005. The median age at divorce is 47.3 for men and 44.4 for women (ABS, 2025).

Worth knowing why divorce sits further out than separation: the 12-month separation requirement, plus the time it takes to file and be heard, means the divorce is granted years after the relationship actually ended.

Divorce rates by state and territory

The national figure hides real variation. These are counts of divorces granted, not per-capita rates, so the bigger states sit at the top largely because more people live in them (ABS, 2025).

The pattern is not uniform. Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory recorded increases in both 2024 and 2025. Western Australia is the only jurisdiction where divorces fell in both years, and it is now below where it sat in 2023. In New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, 2025 was a rebound after a dip in 2024.

Same-sex divorce

Same-sex marriage became legal in Australia in late 2017, so this data is still young. The ABS reports same-sex and non-binary marriage counts alongside the national figures (ABS, 2025).

In 2025, 4,636 marriages were registered for couples of the same or non-binary gender, down 2.3 per cent on the 4,746 registered in 2024. Divorce numbers for these couples are still small and are not broken out as a separate headline figure, so treat any specific same-sex divorce rate you see with caution.

How Australia compares to other countries

By international standards, Australia’s rate is low. Comparing countries is not straightforward, because different countries count divorces in different ways and against different populations, which is the same trap the crude rate sets at home, so headline figures are not always like for like.

What these numbers mean if you are separating

If you are reading this because you are weighing up a separation, not writing an essay, the headline rate is the least useful number on the page. Here is the part that matters, and the part the headlines miss.

“Only 3% of matters actually end up in the family court. Those are the horror stories that you hear about. But 97% of people are actually able to solve their problems without spending tons of money on lawyers and going through the huge legal costs and mess of what is the family court.”

Most people sort out their property settlement and their parenting arrangements without a courtroom, often through family mediation. The court is the exception, not the rule.

The second thing worth knowing is that a divorce is rarely a single event. For most people it is 6 to 12 months of emotional, financial and logistical preparation before anything becomes official. It usually starts well before any paperwork is filed. That is why there is a clear pattern every summer:

“Every year, without fail, the phones start ringing right after the Christmas holidays. We get a flood of emails, and people start their separation journeys in January.”

Most of those January separations were not decided in January. They were worked through over the previous few months, with a lot of that thinking happening over the Christmas period.

The people I see struggle the most are the ones who did not plan, who spend the whole process reacting to whatever their former partner does next. Getting clear advice early is what keeps you in control of your own timeline. If that is where you are, our divorce lawyers in Sydney can talk it through with you before you make a move.