China's Marriages Rose 10.8% in 2025, Ending a Decade-Long Slide

China registered 6.7651 million marriages in 2025, according to the 2026 China Statistical Yearbook published by the National Bureau of Statistics — a 10.8% jump from 6.106 million the year before, and the first annual increase after roughly a decade in which the number fell almost every year. The figure, reported by Yicai, set off a burst of province-by-province comparisons on Weibo the moment it landed. From the 2013 peak of 13.47 million couples, the total had been cut by more than half; the 2025 numbers are the first sign of a floor.

The geography of the rebound is pointed. Guangdong logged 613,800 registrations, up 19.9% year on year, and has now been the country's top province for marriages for four consecutive years — the only one above the 600,000 mark. Henan follows, with the central and southwestern provinces filling out the top ranks. An economist's chart circulating alongside the news shows the full arc: 2013's peak, the long slide through the pandemic years, and the turn upward in 2025. (@麦子俊i)

Why the turn? The posts are arguing about it. One popular theory is logistical: cities have been adding marriage-registration offices, so couples no longer travel across districts to find a counter. "Looks like adding more registration offices was the right call — a lot of people simply couldn't find where to register," one Weibo user wrote, a reminder that in China the paperwork itself can be a barrier. (@达克鸭唐) Others read the number through the birth data published the same day, which show the country's birth rate still falling in most provinces. "Marriage numbers and birth numbers have both reached unhealthy warning levels," one post warned, calling for policy attention before "one young person ends up supporting four to seven elderly people." (@麦子俊i)

The yearbook also counts 10.42 million people entering first marriages in 2025 — the cohort demographers watch most closely, since a shrinking pool of first-time marriers is what has dragged the headline figure down. The yearbook data arrives amid a wider push: officials have spent the past two years trying to reverse the trend with marriage-friendly measures, from simpler registration to subsidized weddings, and local governments have competed to hold mass ceremonies for couples who marry young.

One year does not make a recovery, and demographers will want to see whether 2025 was a base effect — a post-pandemic cohort finally marrying — or the start of something. But for a country whose marriage count had become shorthand for demographic pessimism, the first uptick in a decade is the story of the day. The chart now in wide circulation says it plainly: the line that fell for ten years has bent.