Courts approve 98% of applications for marriage by minors in Ukraine
Over the past five years, Ukrainian courts have granted marriage licenses to 2,874 minors. Only 48 applicants were denied, meaning that 98% of applications were approved.
This is evidenced by data from an OpenDataBot study based on information from the “Babusia” court registry search engine.
The highest number of permits was issued in 2021—790. In subsequent years, the number of such decisions gradually decreased: 641 in 2022, 596 in 2023, 399 in 2024, and 356 in 2025. Since the beginning of 2026, courts have already issued 92 rulings.
The most common reason for filing a petition is pregnancy. This reason was cited in 2,025 cases, accounting for over 72% of the total. In another 704 cases, the courts indicated that the marriage was in the applicants’ best interests, and in 97 cases, the presence of a child together served as the basis.
The highest number of permits for underage marriage was recorded in Lviv Oblast—240. Next are Vinnytsia Oblast with 187 decisions and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with 175. The fewest such cases were in Luhansk Oblast—12.
The main reason for the denials was that the applicants were unable to prove that the marriage was in their best interests. As a result, the courts denied the requests in 36 cases. Another seven cases were dismissed due to lack of subject matter, and five applicants were denied because they had not reached the age of 16.
Source: OpenDataBot.
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