Legal cohabitations down by 3.6% in 2023

In 2023, 36,990 declarations of legal cohabitation were registered in Belgium, i.e. a decrease of 3.6% compared to the previous year. There is a certain regional homogeneity here: -3.1% in the Walloon Region, -3.2% in the Brussels-Capital Region and -3.9% in the Flemish Region.

The age at first partnership is increasingly high. Legal cohabitants who have never been married have an average age of 31.9 years for the first partner and 30.1 years for the second^[1].

As for terminations of legal cohabitation, they remain relatively stable: -0.4% at national level, +2% in the Brussels-Capital Region, -0.2% in Flanders and -0.9% in Wallonia. The average duration of legal cohabitations that have been terminated continues to increase: it amounts to 5.9 years. In 2023, legal cohabitations giving way to marriage still account for more than half of all terminations (56.5%). This phenomenon is more marked in Flanders (61.1%) than in Wallonia (49%) or Brussels (44.2%).

Legal cohabitation has been open to same-sex couples since it was introduced in 2000. These couples accounted for 14.7% of declarations of unrelated partnerships in 2000 and 6.4% in 2003. This proportion has now stabilised at around 4% for the past 4 years.

^[1] The first partner is the man or the oldest partner for same-sex couples; the second partner is the woman or the youngest partner for same-sex couples.