Joint custody has overtaken “mum gets the kids” as Spain’s new divorce normal

Family lawyers in Spain have watched one line in the annual statistics creep upward for a decade, and 2025 is the year it finally crossed over.

A calmer year for Spanish break-ups

Spain’s National Statistics Institute has confirmed that 2025 brought 83,683 marital break-ups in total, covering divorces, separations and annulments. Divorces made up the vast majority at 96.5% (80,785 cases), separations accounted for 3.4% (2,872) and annulments were almost non-existent at 0.1% (27). Compared with 2024, divorces dropped by 2.7% and separations fell sharply, by 20.3%.

Most couples chose not to fight it out. Figures show 80.5% of divorces were uncontested, while only 19.5% ended up disputed in court. When it came to the legal route, 59.3% were processed through a court judgment, 24.8% by decree and 15.9% via a notary’s public deed, an option that keeps growing in popularity. Same-sex partners accounted for 2,221 divorces, 2.7% of the total, plus 80 separations. Female couples split more often than male ones, at 1,226 cases against 995.

Who is divorcing, and at what age

Couples who divorced in 2025 had typically been married for 16.2 years, almost unchanged from the year before. Nearly a third of split-ups, 31.2%, followed 20 years or more together, while just 3.4% happened within the first two years of marriage.

Age at divorce keeps climbing too. Men were 49.1 on average and women 46.6, up from 46.7 and 44.2 respectively back in 2016. People in their forties made up the largest group divorcing, regardless of gender. Foreign nationality played a smaller role, both spouses were Spanish in 80.4% of opposite-sex divorces.

Shared custody now leads the way

Nearly half of these marriages, 47.1%, had no children or dependent adults involved. Where kids were part of the picture, custody arrangements told the real story of 2025: joint custody was granted in 50.8% of cases involving minors, overtaking sole custody to the mother at 45.3% and leaving fathers with just 3.4%. That reversal has been building for years and now looks firmly established.

Maintenance payments followed a more traditional pattern. Child maintenance was set in 53.7% of divorces involving children, with fathers paying in 52.1% of those cases and both parents sharing costs in 44.1%. Compensatory maintenance appeared far less often, in just 6.4% of divorces, and husbands covered it in 91.4% of those instances.

Where divorce rates run highest

Regional differences make a huge difference. Ceuta recorded the country’s highest break-up rate, 2.5 per 1,000 residents, well above the national average of 1.7. Extremadura and Castile and Leon shared the lowest rate, at 1.4 apiece.

Compared with divorce-to-marriage ratios elsewhere, Spain looks very steady rather than dramatic