April 1 marks the 25th anniversary of the world’s first nationally recognized same-sex marriages. Those marriages took place in the Netherlands after it became the first country to legalize such unions.
Today, dozens of other countries also allow same-sex marriage. In the United States, the Supreme Court ruled it a constitutional right in 2015.
Here are some key facts about same-sex marriage around the world, drawn from Pew Research Center surveys and data analyses.
Same-sex marriage is legal in nearly 40 places worldwide, according to a Center analysis from June 2025. Most of these are in Europe and the Americas.
After the Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage in 2001, Belgium was the next to do so in 2003, followed by Canada and Spain in 2005.
The most recent countries to legalize same-sex marriage include Estonia, Greece and Nepal in 2024 and Liechtenstein and Thailand in 2025. Estonia was the first Baltic country to legalize it, and Thailand was the first Southeast Asian country to do so.
Same-sex unions generally make up fewer than 4% of marriages each year in places where they are legal, according to a 2023 Center analysis. The analysis used data from 2020 to 2022 in 24 places where detailed marriage statistics were available.
Spain had the highest share of same-sex marriages, at 3.4% of all marriages registered in 2021. By comparison, only 0.4% of marriages in Ecuador were between a same-sex couple in 2021 – two years after these marriages became legal there.
In the United States, national marriage figures aren’t available to allow for direct comparisons with other places. But as of 2023, same-sex couples made up 1.3% of all married couples heading a U.S. household, according to our recent analysis of Census Bureau data.
Attitudes about same-sex marriage vary widely around the globe, according to Center surveys from 2022 and 2023. Support for legal same-sex marriage was highest in Sweden, where 92% of adults said they somewhat or strongly favor it, and lowest in Nigeria, where only 2% said the same.
In the U.S., 63% of adults supported same-sex marriage as of 2023, while 34% opposed it. That’s almost a complete reversal from 2001, when 35% favored and 57% opposed it.
Perhaps not surprisingly, support for same-sex marriage tends to be higher in places that have legalized it.
In the U.S., 59% of LGBTQ adults under 50 who have never been married say they want to get married someday, according to a Center survey conducted in January 2025. And among those who are divorced, widowed or separated, 46% say they want to remarry.
Most LGBTQ Americans with a same-sex spouse (64%) say legal rights and benefits were a major reason they got married, according to the same January 2025 survey. Those ages 50 and older are more likely than adults under 50 to say this (74% vs. 53%).
Legal rights and benefits are one of several reasons for getting married that we asked about. It’s a more common motivator than finances (29%) but less common than love (90%) or companionship (72%).
In addition, around seven-in-ten LGBTQ adults with a same-sex spouse say that Obergefell v. Hodges – the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage – made Americans more accepting of same-sex couples. That includes 43% who say it made people somewhat more accepting and 26% who say it made people a lot more accepting.
Many people across 25 countries surveyed in 2025 say homosexuality is morally acceptable or that it’s not a moral issue. A median of 38% of adults in these countries say it’s morally acceptable, while 30% say it’s not a moral issue. Another 28% say it’s morally unacceptable.
However, views on this question again vary widely between countries. About nine-in-ten adults or more in Sweden (94%), Germany (94%), Spain (93%) and the Netherlands (91%) say homosexuality is morally acceptable or not a moral issue.
In contrast, 96% of Nigerians and 93% of Indonesians say it’s morally unacceptable. In general, places where higher shares of people say homosexuality is unacceptable are also places where same-sex marriage is illegal.
In the U.S., six-in-ten adults say that homosexuality is either morally acceptable (23%) or not a moral issue (37%). Around four-in-ten say it’s morally unacceptable (39%).
