Marriages ending in divorce lasted a record 13 years in 2025, ONS figures show

Marriages ending in divorce lasted a median 13.0 years for opposite-sex couples in 2025 — the longest figure recorded since the Office for National Statistics time series began in 1963. The figures, published by the ONS on 23 September 2026, cover divorces and civil partnership dissolutions in England and Wales for 2024 and 2025.

That 13.0-year median compares with 8.9 years in 1985, meaning the typical legal duration of a marriage ending in divorce has grown by more than four years over the past four decades. The ONS uses the median rather than an arithmetic mean because partnership-duration data are not evenly distributed — it is the middle value when all durations are arranged from shortest to longest.

Same-sex civil partnerships also reached record highs. The median duration at dissolution was 13.7 years for male couples and 13.6 years for female couples in 2025, both described by the ONS as record figures in their respective series.

Same-sex marriages tell a different story. The median duration at divorce was 7.5 years for male couples and 6.6 years for female couples — considerably shorter than the civil partnership figures, though same-sex marriage has been legally available for less time, which limits direct comparison.

The data measure only completed legal proceedings, from the date of marriage or civil partnership to the date of the final order. England and Wales law requires couples to have been married or in a civil partnership for at least 12 months before they can divorce or dissolve. The figures cannot, by themselves, explain why durations have increased, and they capture only partnerships that ended in a final order — not separations that stopped short of one.