Divorce and marriage statistics for 2025, released recently by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), confirm that fewer and fewer couples in Turkey are choosing to get married, while the number of Turkish couples who choose to break up their relationship is on the rise again.
Official data from the latest report shows that 552,237 marriages and 193,793 divorces were registered in the Eurasian country last year, an increase of almost 5,000 more separations compared to the figures for 2024. The gross marriage rate – that is, the number of marriages per 1,000 inhabitants – thus reached 6.43 last year, while the gross divorce rate stood at 2.26.
The average age at first marriage also continues to rise for both sexes. In 2025, Turkish men married for the first time at 28.5 years of age on average, while women married at 26, maintaining an average difference of 2.5 years between spouses. By region, the south-eastern province of Gaziantep recorded the highest marriage rate (7.76 per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by Osmaniye (7.68) and Şanlıurfa (7.5); on the opposite side, the provinces of Tunceli (4.18), Gümüşhane (4.58) and Ardahan (4.67) had the lowest rates in Türkiye as a whole.
5% of Turkish marriages are with foreign brides
The analysis of marriages with foreigners shows that in 2025 there were 5,347 foreign grooms, or approximately 1% of the grooms who married last year were not Turkish citizens; as for foreign brides, they amounted to 28,646, equivalent to 5.2% of the total.
Among men, Syrian citizens topped the ranking of foreign spouses (20.9% of non-Turkish grooms), followed by Germans (18.8%) and Afghans (5%); among women, Syrians also dominated (13.8%), followed by Uzbeks (13.7%) and Moroccans (9.6%).
In terms of separations, the Aegean province of Izmir recorded the highest divorce rate at 3.28 per thousand inhabitants, followed by Antalya (3.21) and Denizli (3.14); in contrast, the provinces of Hakkari (0.51), Şırnak (0.52) and Bitlis (0.63) experienced the lowest divorce figures in Turkey. 34% of divorces also occurred in the first five years of marriage, while 20.3% occurred between the 6th and 10th year.
This pattern of marriages and divorces is part of a marked slowdown in population growth in Turkey, where the fertility rate has fallen in recent years below the replacement level of an ageing population. In response to this situation, Turkish authorities declared 2025 as the ‘Year of the Family’ and launched a series of initiatives, including incentives to encourage marriages and increase the birth rate.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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