Is Cross-Border Marriage in Asia Actually Growing? We Went Through Ten Years of Data to Find Out

There's a claim we hear constantly in this industry — from clients, from journalists, sometimes from our own team: “More and more people in Asia are looking abroad for a partner.”

It sounds obviously true. It's the kind of thing everyone repeats and nobody checks.

So we checked. We went through the official government statistics for four markets — Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore — covering roughly the last ten years. And the honest answer is: the claim is mostly wrong.

Cross-border marriage in Asia isn't growing. It's changing. And if you're thinking about an international marriage yourself, the way it's changing matters a lot more than whether the headline number goes up or down.

Here's what we found.

First, an uncomfortable fact: fewer people are getting married at all

Before we talk about any percentage, you need to know what's happening to the total number of marriages — because a “share” is only as meaningful as the number underneath it.

In all four markets, total marriages are falling:

• Taiwan peaked at 154,000 marriage registrations in 2015, slid to 135,000 by 2019, dropped to 122,000 in 2020 and 115,000 in 2021 during the pandemic, then recovered only partially to 123,061 in 2024.
• Hong Kong recorded 42,568 marriages in 1991, fell to 32,825 in 2001, rebounded to a peak of 60,459 in 2012 — and has broadly declined since, down to 44,196 in 2024.
• Singapore registered 24,688 marriages in 2025, down 6.2% from 26,328 the year before. That's the third annual fall in a row.

Why does this matter? Because when you see a headline like “cross-border marriages now make up a record share,” part of that record is just the denominator shrinking. Fewer local-local marriages makes international marriage look like it's booming when the actual headcount may be flat or falling.

Keep that in mind for everything below.

Singapore: flat for ten years — but the people changed completely

Singapore has the cleanest data of the four markets, with one consistent definition running through the whole series. And what it shows is the opposite of “growth.”

Transnational marriages made up 37% of citizen marriages in 2024. The government itself says this proportion has been largely stable for the past decade, apart from dips in the 2020–21 pandemic years. The all-time high was 41% — back in 2009. So Singapore's share is actually lower than it was fifteen years ago.

What did change — dramatically — is who these marriages involve.

In 2024, 70.8% of citizen–non-resident marriages were a citizen groom with a non-resident bride. But look at the profile of those brides over ten years:

The 2025 report continues the same direction: the under-25 share fell from 18.4% to 9.1%, while wives aged 40 and above rose from 10.9% to 19.5%.

Read those numbers again. In one decade, the under-25 share more than halved, and the over-40 share nearly doubled. The stereotype of the very young foreign bride is disappearing from the data in real time.

Taiwan: the share is rising, but two things run against everything you'd expect

Taiwan registered 123,061 marriages in 2024. Of those, 21,888 — 17.8% — involved a foreign, mainland Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau spouse. Compared with pre-pandemic 2019 regional figures (23.84% in Kinmen and Matsu, 16.96% north, 15.00% central, 14.49% south), the share has clearly gone up.

Sounds like growth, right? Two surprises hiding underneath.

Surprise one: the actual headcount is falling. The number of non-national spouses marrying Taiwanese nationals dropped by 581 in 2024. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau fell by 1,624 and other regions by 619 — while Southeast Asia rose by 1,662. The share is rising mostly because total marriages are falling, and the mix underneath is being completely reshuffled.

Surprise two: the female share is falling too. Of Taiwan's non-national spouses in 2024, 15,392 (70.3%) were women and 6,496 (29.7%) men — and that gap has been narrowing for a decade. The sex ratio moved from 30.6 in 2015 to 42.2 in 2024. The picture most people carry in their head — local man, foreign wife — is a shrinking share of Taiwan's cross-border marriages.

And where do Taiwan's foreign spouses come from? Cumulative figures from 1987 to February 2024:

Vietnam is more than eleven times the size of Thailand here. On Taiwan's cross-border marriage map, Thailand barely registers — which surprised us, given what we see happening in Korea (more on that below).

Hong Kong: the most dramatic reversal of the four

If you still picture cross-border marriage in Asia as a one-way street, Hong Kong is the case that should change your mind.

In 1991, marriages between Hong Kong women and mainland men made up just 6.1% of all cross-boundary marriages. By 2024, that figure was 40.0% — and the category passed ten thousand cases for the first time, reaching 10,712, a thirty-year high.

Three decades ago, Hong Kong's cross-boundary marriages ran almost entirely in one direction. Today, four in ten run the other way.

Over the same period, the median age at first marriage in Hong Kong rose from 29.1 to 32.6 for men, and from 26.2 to 31.0 for women. People are marrying later, and marrying across the border in both directions.

Korea: the one market where the story is actually true — and Thailand is the fastest riser

Here's where it gets interesting for us, because Korea–Thailand is the corridor we know best.

Korea is the only one of the four markets where cross-border marriage is genuinely rising. Multicultural marriages reached 21,450 in 2024, up 1,019 (5.0%) from 20,431 in 2023 — the highest level in five years, since the pre-pandemic 24,721 in 2019. The series grew steadily from 2016, crashed in 2020 (16,200) and 2021 (13,900), and has now risen three years in a row.

The share of all Korean marriages traced the same V-shape: 10.3% in 2019, down to 7.6% in 2020, bottoming at 7.2% in 2021, then recovering to 9.1% in 2022 and 10.6% in 2023 — the highest in thirteen years, since 10.8% in 2010.

Foreign wives made up 71.2% of these marriages in 2024, up from 63.6% in 2014, and climbing three years running: 66.8% in 2022, 69.8% in 2023, 71.2% in 2024.

Now the part that made us sit up. By nationality in 2024, Vietnam led at 26.8%, China was second at 15.9%, and Thailand third at 10.0%. But look at the ten-year movement:

Thailand posted the largest gain of any origin country. Using Korea's alternative statistical series (which counts foreign nationals only), foreign wives marrying Korean men in 2024 were 32.1% Vietnamese, 16.7% Chinese, 13.7% Thai and 7.5% Japanese — and marriages to Thai women were 4.3 times the 2010 level.

This matches what we see in our own work every week. Since we started interviewing couples, the Korea–Thailand corridor has felt like the fastest-moving one in the region — and it's genuinely satisfying to see the national statistics confirm it.

One more Korea data point worth knowing: 32.7% of husbands in multicultural marriages were 45 or older; the husband was the older partner in 76.2% of couples, and older by ten years or more in 37.3%.

Three shifts that show up in all four markets

Put the four markets side by side and the real story isn't growth. It's three simultaneous shifts.

1. China is withdrawing, Southeast Asia is filling the gap. Taiwan lost 1,624 mainland/HK/Macau spouses in a single year while gaining 1,662 from Southeast Asia. Korea's Chinese share fell ten percentage points in a decade, with Southeast Asia taking its place. This is structural displacement — the total isn't changing much, but who's in it is changing completely.

2. Foreign spouses are getting older and more educated. Singapore's series says it clearest: under-25s down from 19.5% to 8.4%, university-educated up from 33.1% to 39.9%, over-40s nearly doubled. The most persistent stereotype about cross-border marriage — young, poorly educated, from a poor region — simply does not survive contact with the 2024 data.

3. The flow now runs both ways. Taiwan's male share of foreign spouses has risen steadily for a decade (sex ratio from 30.6 to 42.2). Four in ten of Hong Kong's cross-boundary marriages are local women marrying mainland men. “Men of one country looking outward” is turning into genuine two-way movement.

What this means if you're actually considering it

We'll be direct, because this data has real implications depending on what you're looking for.

If your plan is to trade an economic gap for an age gap — that path is closing. Singapore's under-25 share falling from 19.5% to 8.4% in ten years isn't a change in fashion. It's a supply that's disappearing. Economic growth in the origin countries, rising female education, and tighter government scrutiny of cross-border marriage all push in the same direction. This is also, frankly, not the kind of match we build — and the data suggests the market agrees.

If speed is what you want, the data isn't on your side either. The administrative side of a cross-border marriage — document verification, translation, interviews, visas, residency — has become more demanding in most markets over the past decade, not less.

If your concern is long-term compatibility, this is the best news in the whole dataset. Closer ages, higher education levels, more dispersed origins — all of it means couples today start with more common ground than they used to. That's the direction we'd want the data to move, and it's moving.

Frequently asked questions

What share of marriages in Taiwan are cross-border?
Of the 123,061 marriages registered in Taiwan in 2024, 21,888 involved a foreign, mainland Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau spouse — 17.8%.

Where do most of Taiwan's foreign spouses come from?
Vietnam. Cumulatively from 1987 to February 2024, 117,034 Vietnamese spouses accounted for 19.69%, far ahead of Indonesia (5.39%), the Philippines (1.96%) and Thailand (1.71%).

Is international marriage in Korea rising or falling?
Rising. Multicultural marriages reached 21,450 in 2024, up 5.0% year on year and the highest since 2019. Foreign wives made up 71.2%, up three years running.

Where do Korea's foreign wives come from?
Vietnam (26.8%), China (15.9%) and Thailand (10.0%). Thailand rose 9.2 percentage points over ten years — the largest gain of any origin country.

In Hong Kong's cross-boundary marriages, who marries whom?
The direction has changed. In 2024, marriages between Hong Kong women and mainland men accounted for 40.0% of all cross-boundary marriages — 10,712 cases, more than six times the 6.1% share recorded in 1991.

What proportion of marriages in Singapore are transnational?
37% of citizen marriages in 2024. The proportion has been broadly stable for a decade and sits below the 2009 peak of 41%.

Are foreign spouses mostly young women?
No, and the trend is reversing. Among Singapore's non-resident wives, the under-25 share fell from 19.5% in 2014 to 8.4% in 2024, while the university-educated share rose from 33.1% to 39.9%. In Taiwan, the male share of foreign spouses has been rising since 2015.

Is cross-border marriage becoming more common across Asia?
Only Korea is clearly rising. Taiwan's rising share is driven mainly by falling total marriages, Singapore has been flat for ten years, and Hong Kong's cross-boundary marriages are declining in absolute terms. What all four genuinely share is a change in composition, not volume.

A quick note on the numbers

Two honest caveats, because we'd rather you trust this piece than be impressed by it:

1. Each market defines its statistics differently, so the absolute figures shouldn't be compared head-to-head. Taiwan's “non-national spouse” category includes mainland Chinese, Hong Kong and Macau residents. Singapore measures transnational marriages against citizen marriages. Korea's “multicultural marriage” includes spouses of naturalised citizens. What we've compared here is the direction of each trend, not the levels between markets.
2. Korea publishes two parallel series, and both are correct. “Multicultural marriage” (다문화 혼인) includes spouses of naturalised citizens; “marriage with foreign nationals” (외국인과의 혼인) counts foreign nationals only. Naturalised spouses have historically been mostly Chinese in origin, which dilutes other countries' shares in the first series — which is why Thailand appears as 10.0% in one series and 13.7% in the other. (A third figure, 16.1%, circulates online — that one comes from the 2022 statistics, not 2024.) Wherever it matters above, we've indicated which series a figure is drawn from.

Sources

• Taiwan Ministry of the Interior, Department of Statistics — Weekly Statistical Bulletin No. 30 (2025): 2024 Marriage Registration Overview
• Taiwan Ministry of the Interior, Department of Statistics — Weekly Statistical Bulletins No. 6 (2019), No. 8 (2020), No. 10 (2022)
• Taiwan National Immigration Agency — Statistics on Foreign Spouses and Mainland (incl. Hong Kong and Macau) Spouses
• Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department — Hong Kong Monthly Digest of Statistics, January 2026: “Marriage and Divorce Trends in Hong Kong, 1991 to 2024”
• Singapore National Population and Talent Division — Population in Brief 2025
• Singapore Ministry of Social and Family Development — Family Trends Report 2025
• Statistics Korea / Korea National Data Office — 2024 Multicultural Population Dynamics Statistics (published November 2025)
• Statistics Korea — 2024 Marriage and Divorce Statistics

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