The number of couples getting married in New Zealand continued to decline in 2025, with new Statistics New Zealand figures showing a 3 percent drop from the previous year.
A total of 17,481 marriages and civil unions were celebrated in 2025, down from 18,033 in 2024, maintaining a long-term downward trend in marriage rates.
"The marriage rate peaked in 1971 and has generally been falling since," said Stats NZ spokesperson Rebekah Hennessey.
The 2025 marriage rate of 7.6 marriages per 1,000 eligible people represents roughly half the rate recorded in 2000 (15.5 per 1,000) and just one-sixth of the 1971 peak of 45.5 per 1,000.
Despite fewer local marriages, overseas couples continue choosing New Zealand as their wedding destination. In 2025, 2,565 couples living abroad came here to marry, up from 2,418 in 2024. More than half of these couples (55 percent) lived in Australia, with others coming from the United States (9 percent), United Kingdom (9 percent), and China including Hong Kong (7 percent).
"Nearly 2 in 5 couples who came to New Zealand to marry in 2025 had at least one person in the couple born in New Zealand," Hennessey said.
While marriages declined, divorces increased 5 percent to 7,887 in 2025, up from 7,497 in 2024. However, divorce numbers remain well below historical peaks - there were 9,699 divorces in 2000 and 12,396 in 1982.
The divorce rate reached 7.9 per 1,000 marriages in 2025, slightly up from 7.5 in 2024 but much lower than the 2000 rate of 12.2 per 1,000.
"The divorce rate was higher than the marriage rate in 2025 for the first time; however, it is important to remember that these measures are not directly comparable as they are calculated using completely different base populations," Hennessey explained.
Despite the statistics, about 60 percent of couples remain married for life, with only 5 percent divorcing within five years and just over one-third divorcing within 25 years.