Ukrainian courts allow marriages of minors in 98 per cent of cases

This is reported by Opendatabot with reference to data from the court registry search engine "Babusya".

The main reason for such appeals is pregnancy. According to analysts, it appeared in 2025 decisions, that is, in more than 72% of cases. In another 704 cases, the courts indicated that the marriage licence was in the interests of the applicants, and in 97 cases the reason was the presence of a common child.

It is important: it is not that minors in Ukraine are free to marry at any age. The general marriage age is 18 years. But a person who has already turned 16 can, through the court, obtain the right to marry, if the court finds that it is in his interests.

Details

According to Opendatabot, the highest number of judgements granting the right to marry to minors was in 2021 - 790. After that, the number of such cases gradually decreased: in 2022, the courts issued 641 judgements, in 2023 - 596, in 2024 - 399, in 2025 - 356. In 2026, 92 judgements have already been recorded.

By region, Lviv region is the leader - 240 judgements in five years. Then come Vinnytsia region - 187 decisions, Dnipropetrovsk region - 175, as well as Rivne and Volyn regions - 164 decisions each.

The least number of such cases was in Luhansk region - 12 decisions. Kherson region recorded 23 decisions, Kyiv - 42, and Donetsk region - 45. These figures could be influenced not only by the social situation, but also by the war, occupation, migration and accessibility of courts in certain regions.

Refusals were rare. In just five years, courts refused to grant the right to marry 48 times. In most of these cases, the applicants could not prove that marriage was really in their interest. Another part of the cases were closed due to the absence of the subject of the dispute, and in several cases the reason for the refusal was age: the applicant or the applicant was under 16 years old.

Legally, the procedure is as follows: a minor who is over 16 years of age files an application with the court. The court must assess whether the future marriage is in the applicant's best interests. The Supreme Court has separately stated that this is an evaluative rule: the court must check the circumstances, the maturity of the person, the voluntariness of the decision and whether there is no pressure or risk of rights violation.

Why it matters

These statistics show that in Ukraine the topic of marriage before the age of 18 remains not an exception on paper, but a real court practice. Formally, the law requires an individual assessment of each case, but the data show that if the application reached the court, the refusal is extremely rare.

The most sensitive part is the pregnancy of minors. When it becomes the main argument for authorising a marriage, the question arises: does the marriage really protect the interests of the teenager, or are society and the family trying in this way to "formalise" an already existing situation.

Background

In Ukraine, the general age of marriage is set at 18 years of age. At the same time, Article 23 of the Family Code allows a person who has reached the age of 16 to obtain the right to marry by court decision if it is established that it is in his or her best interests.

Discussions periodically arise around this norm. The topic has been particularly hotly debated against the background of work on the new Civil Code. In the initial version of the draft, according to Opendatabot, a norm was proposed that could authorise marriage from the age of 14 by court decision in the case of pregnancy or the birth of a child. After public criticism, this provision was removed from the text of the draft law.

The very possibility of marriage from the age of 16 through the court exists for exceptional cases. But statistics for five years show that in practice the courts almost always agree with the applicants. Therefore, the main issue is not only the law, but how deeply the courts check the interests of a minor and possible pressure from the family, partner or circumstances.