Nearly 106,000 divorces were finalised in England and Wales in 2025, and the average no-fault divorce now takes over a year longer to process than it did when the system launched in 2022.

This report is based on national data obtained via a Freedom of Information request to HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), covering divorce, nullity and judicial separation proceedings from 2003 to 2025. It includes a dedicated look at the no-fault divorce reform introduced in April 2022, including how long cases take, and how joint and sole applications compare.

• 105,704 divorces were finalised in England and Wales in 2025, broadly flat (+3.5%) on the 102,154 finalised in 2015.
• Divorce finalisations dropped sharply to 80,417 in 2022, the year the no-fault divorce system launched, before recovering to pre-reform levels by 2023.
• By 2025, 94.5% of finalised divorces were processed under the no-fault system introduced in April 2022, with the old fault-based system now almost entirely phased out.
• Contested divorces have all but disappeared, falling from 528 in 2015 to just 73 in 2025, a drop of 86.2%.
• The average time from application to final order under the no-fault system rose from 32.8 weeks in 2022 to 55.6 weeks in 2025, an increase of 69.3%.
• 216,486 divorce applications were made under the no-fault system in 2025.
• Around 1 in 4 divorce applications (25.7%) in 2025 were made jointly by both spouses, an option that didn’t exist before the 2022 reform.
• Women made 62.7% of sole divorce applications in 2025, consistent with the historical pattern: wives accounted for 61 to 63% of divorce petitions every year between 2015 and 2021, before “petitioner” terminology was replaced under the new law.
• Nullity of marriage and judicial separation remain rare, with 301 nullity cases and 238 judicial separations recorded in 2025, each under 0.5% of total divorce volumes.
• Before divorce processing was centralised nationally, Kent’s Medway court processed as many as 4,225 divorces in a single year (2012).

HMCTS data shows the number of divorces finalised each year in England and Wales has stayed relatively stable over the past decade, once a sharp dip around the 2022 reform is accounted for.

The clearest anomaly in the data is 2022, when finalised divorces dropped to 80,417, the lowest figure in the dataset. This coincides with the introduction of no-fault divorce that April, which replaced the previous fault-based system entirely and required courts to transition case processing to a new legal framework mid-year. By 2023, volumes had recovered to 103,475, in line with pre-reform levels, suggesting this was a temporary disruption rather than a lasting change in divorce rates.

The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 came into force on 6 April 2022, removing the need for either spouse to establish fault (such as adultery or unreasonable behaviour) to obtain a divorce, and introducing the option for couples to apply jointly.

The data shows a fast, steady transition to the new system. In its first year, only 9.3% of finalised divorces used the no-fault process, largely because cases already underway before April 2022 continued under the old rules. By 2025, that had risen to 94.5%, with the remaining old law cases likely representing long-running or complex proceedings that began before the reform.

One clear effect of the reform is on contested divorces, which have become vanishingly rare. Under the old system, a spouse could contest a divorce petition, though this was always uncommon. Since no-fault divorce removed the need to prove wrongdoing, contested cases have dropped further still, from 528 in 2015 to 73 in 2025, a fall of 86.2%.

One of the stated aims of the 2022 reform was to reduce conflict in the divorce process. The data suggests it hasn’t necessarily made the process faster.

The average time to reach a final order has risen every year since the reform launched, up from 32.8 weeks in 2022 to 55.6 weeks in 2025, an increase of 69.3%. This is worth reading alongside the built-in minimum timeframe: the law requires a minimum 20-week reflection period between application and conditional order, plus a further 6 weeks before the final order can be granted, so some increase from the 2022 baseline was expected as the system matured. 

That said, the rise from roughly 33 weeks to over 55 weeks points to a system under sustained pressure rather than one settling at its statutory minimum, which would sit closer to 26 weeks.

The 2022 reform introduced joint applications for the first time, allowing both spouses to apply for divorce together rather than one spouse applying against the other.

Sole applications remain the clear majority, accounting for around 3 in 4 divorces each year since the reform. The share of joint applications has stayed fairly consistent, hovering between 24% and 29% since 2022, suggesting take-up of the joint option has settled rather than grown over time.

Under the old fault-based system, HMCTS recorded the gender of the petitioner, the spouse who filed for divorce. This data shows a consistent pattern in the years before the reform.

Wives consistently made around 61 to 63% of divorce petitions each year between 2015 and 2021. This terminology changed under the 2022 reform, which replaced “petitioner” with “applicant” and introduced joint applications, but the pattern has continued for sole applications since:

[Note: remaining percentage each year is “unknown/other” gender, a small share ranging from roughly 2% to 4%, omitted from the table for readability.]

Women continue to make up the clear majority of sole divorce applicants, at 62.7% in 2025, a pattern that has held steady both before and after the 2022 reform.

Advice from Aneeta Kaur Kang LL.B (Hons), Family Law Director at Manak Solicitors:

1. No-fault divorce removed blame, not complexity: Since April 2022, neither spouse has to prove the other is at fault to get a divorce, which has made the process less confrontational. It hasn’t removed the need to sort out finances or arrangements for children, and those are often the parts that take the most time and cause the most disagreement.
2. Build in more time than the headline figures suggest: The law sets a minimum 20-week reflection period before a conditional order, plus a further 6 weeks before the final order, but our data shows the average is now closer to 56 weeks. Delays are often caused by incomplete paperwork or unresolved financial matters, so getting advice early can help avoid unnecessary hold-ups.
3. Joint applications suit amicable splits, sole applications work when that’s not possible: A joint application can feel like a more collaborative starting point where both parties are in agreement, but it’s not required, and a sole application is often the more practical option where communication has broken down.
4. A divorce and a financial settlement are two separate legal processes: Getting a final order ends the marriage, but it doesn’t automatically divide assets, pensions, or debts, and it doesn’t set out arrangements for children. Without a separate financial order, either party can, in principle, make a financial claim against the other in future, even years after the divorce is finalised.

Data on divorce, nullity and judicial separation proceedings, including case volumes, contested cases and petitioner gender, was obtained via Freedom of Information request to HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), covering the years 2003 to 2025 (old law) and 2022 to 2025 (new no-fault law). Figures are drawn from HMCTS’s live case management systems and may differ slightly from published Family Court Statistics Quarterly releases for the same reason noted on our child arrangements statistics page.

Data on the historical Medway DFJ divorce caseload was obtained via the same Freedom of Information request, covering DFJ and regional-level case data from 2011 to 2025. This data becomes unreliable at a local level from around 2015 onward, once divorce case processing was centralised into regional Courts & Tribunals Service Centres, and has therefore only been used to illustrate Medway’s pre-centralisation caseload.

Data on gender for the old fault-based system reflects the petitioner (the spouse who filed for divorce). Data for the new no-fault system reflects the applicant in sole applications only; gender data is not presented for joint applications, where both spouses are applicants.