Weddings with minors with an increase of 190%

Portugal has registered 470 marriages with minors since 2023, a phenomenon that has increased by almost 190% since 2020. In the last two years there have been six adults aged 30 or over 18 years.

Second data from the Institute of Registration and Notaries (IRN), the number of marriages in which one of the people is minor, aged 16 and 18, has increased consecutively in the last five years.

Last year reached 227 and in the first three months of 2025 there were 65.

Between 2020 and 2024 there was an 187% increase in the number of marriages with minors, after 2020 registered 79 marriages, one of the low values. An explanation is the closure of most public services with face-to-face service, following the Covid-19 pandemic.

After 2020, the number of marriages involving minors increased every year from 130 by 2021 to 158 by 2022, 178 by 2023 and 227 in 2024. The increase between these last two years is almost 30%.

According to the Lusa agency, IRN data show a strong preponderance of marriages in which one of the elements was between 16 and 18 years old, representing 74.3% (705) of the 940 people involved in the 470 weddings in question between 2023 and the first three months of 2025.

Most of the teenagers were women’s gender (65%), a trend that holds among the three ages, with a record of 317 girls who married 16 years old, another 127 who married when they were 17 years old and 15 who were 18 years old.

In these minor weddings, the older adult is 35 years old, is a man, of Portuguese nationality, and married a 17 -year -old. There is also a record of a 32 -year -old man who married a 17 -year -old, and two 31 -year -old men, both married to 17 -year -olds.

There are also a registration of two 30 -year -old women, one with a 16 -year -old, one with a 17 -year -old, with two more 30 -year -olds who contracted marriage with two young women, one with 16, one with 17.

Among the adults who married minors, most are of Portuguese nationality, but there is also a registration of a Moroccan citizen, a Algerian and two Brazilians.

Since April 2, marriages under the age of 18 are prohibited and early or forced children’s marriage joined the whole danger situations that legitimize the intervention to promote the rights and protection of children and young people in danger.