Foreign spouses accounted for 18.5% of marriages in Taiwan in 2025

Taipei, July 5 (CNA) Foreign spouses accounted for 18.5 percent of all marriages in 2025, the highest share over the past decade, despite the number of foreign spouses falling by 2,554 from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of the Interior (MOI).

According to the latest Statistical Bulletin released by the MOI, the number of registered marriages peaked at 148,000 in 2016 before falling to 104,000 in 2025, down 15.2 percent from 2024.

Of the total, 85,042 marriages were between two Republic of China (ROC) nationals, accounting for 81.5 percent, while 19,334 involved one spouse who was a foreign national or a resident of mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao, accounting for 18.5 percent.

The crude marriage rate stood at 4.5 per 1,000 population in 2025, the data indicated.

According to data from the past decade, the number of marriages involving a non-ROC national spouse stood at 20,359 individuals in 2016, accounting for 13.8 percent of all registered marriages.

The figure subsequently peaked at 22,469 in 2023, representing 17.9 percent of all registered marriages. Although the number fell to 19,334 in 2025, the share of marriages involving a non-ROC national spouse rose to a new 9-year high of 18.5 percent of all registered marriages.

According to the MOI data, among foreign spouses in 2025, those from Southeast Asia accounted for the largest group at 9,596, representing 9.2 percent of all marriages and 49.6 percent of all foreign spouses.

Spouses from mainland China numbered 5,170, accounting for 5.0 percent of all marriages and 26.7 percent of all foreign spouses.

Excluding spouses from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, Vietnamese nationals were the largest group at 6,427, followed by U.S. nationals at 880 and Indonesians at 821, the data showed.

Regionally, northern Taiwan recorded the largest number of foreign spouses at 9,806, accounting for 50.7 percent of the total.

Southern Taiwan followed with 4,578, or 23.7 percent, while central Taiwan had 4,499, or 23.3 percent. Eastern Taiwan and the Kinmen-Lienchiang (Matsu) regions recorded 296 and 155 foreign spouses, respectively.

The MOI data also showed that the gender ratio among foreign spouses rose from 31.8 in 2016 to 43.5 in 2025, indicating that the gap between male and female foreign spouses has narrowed.

The gender ratio measures the number of males per 100 females. A ratio above 100 indicates there are more males than females.

The ministry said there were 13,471 female foreign spouses in 2025, accounting for 69.7 percent of the total, compared with 5,863 male foreign spouses, or 30.3 percent.