Missouri family law · Statistics updated October 2026
The short answer. Missouri recorded 15,191 divorces in 2024, a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 residents and a 6.3% drop from 2023, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The state now sees 2.37 marriages for every divorce, the highest ratio in more than 50 years. Those 2024 figures are provisional, and 2025 counts are still coming in.
This page gathers the newest official Missouri numbers on divorce, children, child support, kinship care, and family court in St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis, St. Charles County, and Jefferson County, so you can see where your situation fits. Every figure below comes from a government source or from Bardol Law Firm’s own count of public court records, and each one links to where it came from. Where we did the math ourselves, we say so.
- What Is the Divorce Rate in Missouri?
- How Many Missouri Divorces Involve Children?
- How Many Family Cases Are Filed in St. Louis-Area Courts?
- How Long Do Family Court Cases Take in Missouri?
- How Many Child Support Cases Does Missouri Handle?
- How Many Missouri Grandparents Are Raising Grandchildren?
- What Do These Numbers Mean for Your Case?
- Frequently Asked Questions About Missouri Family Law Statistics
- Where These Numbers Come From
Missouri Family Law at a Glance
What Is the Divorce Rate in Missouri?
Missouri’s divorce rate was 2.4 divorces per 1,000 residents in 2024, based on provisional state figures from Missouri DHSS. In 1990, the rate was 5.1 per 1,000, according to the CDC’s state divorce rate tables. By our calculation, the rate has fallen by more than half in roughly 35 years.
A “divorce rate” here means divorces counted in a year for every 1,000 people living in Missouri, including children and people who never married. It is not the share of marriages that end in divorce. The often-repeated “50% of marriages” figure is a different measure, and it is not what these state numbers track.
Is Divorce in Missouri Going Down?
Yes. Missouri recorded 16,220 divorces and annulments in 2023 and 15,191 in 2024, a 6.3% drop. Early 2025 figures show the decline continuing. The state counted 14,544 dissolutions (Missouri DHSS, Provisional Vital Statistics, March 2025) in the 12 months ending March 2025, down from 16,038 a year earlier. Those 2025 numbers are provisional and may change.
How Does Missouri’s Divorce Rate Compare With Other States?
Missouri’s 2024 divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 residents sits in the middle of its eight neighbors, according to the CDC’s 2024 state divorce rate table. Three neighbors reported lower rates, one matched Missouri, and four reported higher rates.
Lower than Missouri. Illinois (1.3), Kansas (1.7), and Iowa (1.8)
Same as Missouri. Nebraska (2.4)
Higher than Missouri. Tennessee (2.7), Kentucky (2.9), Arkansas (3.3), and Oklahoma (3.3)
State-to-state comparisons are rough. The CDC notes that some states’ counts include divorce petitions filed or legal separations, and a few states do not report divorce data at all.
Are Missourians Still Getting Married?
Marriages ticked up 1.9% in 2024, to 36,058. With marriages rising and divorces falling, Missouri saw 2.37 marriages for every divorce in 2024, which the state health department called the highest ratio in more than 50 years.
The marriage rate has still fallen over the long run, from 9.6 per 1,000 residents in 1990 (CDC) to 5.8 in 2024. Of the 35,396 marriages recorded in 2023 (Missouri DHSS, 2023 Missouri Vital Statistics, Table 31), October and September were the busiest months. That year also included 760 marriages between two women and 357 between two men, about 3% of the total by our calculation.
How Many Missourians Are Divorced Right Now?
About 592,800 Missourians age 15 and older are currently divorced, roughly 11.6% of that age group, by our calculation from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey. Women are more likely than men to report being divorced, 13.0% compared with 10.1%. These are survey estimates, and they count only people whose current status is divorced. Someone who divorced and later remarried is counted as married.
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How Many Missouri Divorces Involve Children?
About 45% of Missouri divorces in 2023 involved at least one child. Of the 16,220 divorces and annulments recorded that year (Missouri DHSS, 2023 Missouri Vital Statistics, Table 38), 7,246 involved children, 8,967 did not, and 7 were unknown. That means custody, parenting time, and child support were on the table in nearly half of all Missouri divorces.
Those 7,246 divorces involved at least 13,460 children, by our calculation. The state reports families by number of children, with a top category of “six or more,” so the true total is somewhat higher. Here is how the 2023 divorces with children broke down.
How Is Custody Decided in Missouri Divorces?
Joint custody is by far the most common result. In 2023 Missouri divorces and annulments where the state recorded who received custody of the children, custody went as follows.
Joint custody. 5,325 decrees (about 77%)
Wife. 1,100 (about 16%)
Husband. 439 (about 6%)
Other. 87 (about 1%)
Those shares are our calculation from Table 40 of Missouri Vital Statistics 2023, based on the 6,951 decrees that recorded a custody award. The state report does not say whether “joint” means joint legal custody, joint physical custody or both, and joint custody does not necessarily mean equal parenting time. Table 40 also counts slightly more divorces without children (9,269) than Table 38 (8,967), so its totals differ a little from the figures above.
Most of these decrees came before a major change in Missouri custody law. About two-thirds of 2023 decrees (10,971 of 16,293) were entered from January through August, and Missouri’s presumption that equal or approximately equal parenting time is in a child’s best interests took effect on August 28, 2023 (Table 36 of the same report). Our page on whether Missouri is a 50/50 custody state explains the presumption and when it can be overcome.
How Long Do Missouri Marriages Last Before Divorce?
Missouri divorces happen at every stage of marriage. In 2023, about one in four (4,111) ended within the first five years, while about 18% (2,962) came after 20 years or more, by our calculation from the same state table. Couples married 10 to 12 years were the largest of the state’s reporting groups, at 1,719 divorces.
Long marriages raise different questions, covered in our guide to divorce for older Missourians. About 66% of 2023 divorces after 20 or more years involved no children, compared with 55% of all divorces, by our calculation. With no custody or child support to decide, those cases turn on property division, such as retirement accounts and pensions, and on whether one spouse should receive maintenance (Missouri’s term for alimony). For research on divorce after 50, see our gray divorce statistics.
How Many Missouri Children Live With a Single Parent?
About 32% of Missouri children, roughly 416,000, lived in single-parent families in 2024, down from 34% in 2019 and below the national rate of 34%, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2026 KIDS COUNT profile. Census survey data show about 146,600 Missouri households headed by a single parent living with their own children under 18, about three-quarters of them headed by mothers.
Another 59,327 Missouri households are unmarried couples raising the householder’s children, according to the 2024 American Community Survey. When unmarried parents separate, there is no divorce case. If they need a court to decide custody or support, that happens in a paternity case, and those cases are included in the court counts below.
How Many Family Cases Are Filed in St. Louis-Area Courts?
The four St. Louis-area circuit courts opened 10,269 new family cases in 2025, according to Bardol Law Firm’s count of public records on Missouri Case.net. St. Louis County alone accounted for about 53% of them, more than the City of St. Louis, St. Charles County, and Jefferson County combined.
We counted each court’s new family cases for calendar year 2025 using the last case number its family case series assigned in 2025. These counts cover new family cases such as divorce, paternity, and custody filings. They do not include orders of protection, which these courts number in a separate series, or motions to modify an existing judgment, which are filed under the original case number.
These are our own counts, not official court statistics. The Missouri courts publish their own figures by fiscal year (July through June) and group case types differently, so the two sets of numbers are not directly comparable.
How Many Divorces Are Filed in St. Louis County?
In fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 through June 2025), 2,693 dissolution of marriage cases were filed in St. Louis County family court, according to Table 42 of the Missouri Judicial Report Supplement. The same court report shows 1,144 divorce filings in St. Charles County, 644 in Jefferson County and 505 in the City of St. Louis.
Statewide, Missouri courts received 19,315 dissolution filings that year. Not every filing ends in a divorce, since some cases are dismissed before a judgment.
How Common Are Orders of Protection?
Orders of protection are the most common type of family case in Missouri courts. In fiscal year 2025, Missouri circuit courts received 43,112 adult abuse petitions, the court category for adult orders of protection, compared with 19,315 dissolution of marriage filings. St. Louis County received 5,697 adult abuse petitions, the City of St. Louis 2,873, St. Charles County 1,702 and Jefferson County 1,539. In all four courts, adult abuse petitions outnumbered divorce filings. A petition is a request, not a finding of abuse. For how often domestic violence occurs and what it costs, see our domestic violence statistics.
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How Long Do Family Court Cases Take in Missouri?
Most Missouri family court cases end within 10 months, but in fiscal year 2025 the state’s courts again fell just short of their own pace goals. Of the 90,149 domestic relations cases Missouri courts closed that year, 87.6% were finished within 10 months and 91.8% within 14 months, according to Table 64 of the Missouri Judicial Report Supplement. The average case took 149 days.
The Missouri Supreme Court’s Court Operating Rule 17 sets the standard, 90% of domestic relations cases resolved within 10 months of filing and 95% within 14 months. The rule calls these management tools, not absolute requirements.
These figures cover every kind of family case the rule counts, including divorce, paternity, motions to modify, contempt motions, and orders of protection, which often wrap up within weeks. The court data do not report divorce timelines separately, so a divorce with custody, property, or support in dispute may take longer than these averages suggest.
Here is how the St. Louis-area courts compared in fiscal year 2025. None of the four met either standard, although the City of St. Louis came within a tenth of a point of the 10-month goal.
Missouri law also sets a floor. Under section 452.305, RSMo, a court cannot enter a divorce judgment until 30 days have passed since the petition was filed. For the full divorce timeline, step by step, see how long a divorce takes in Missouri.
How Many Child Support Cases Does Missouri Handle?
Missouri’s Family Support Division had 271,006 active child support cases at the end of June 2026, according to the state’s caseload counter. That is down from 279,359 in July 2025, a drop of about 3% in one year, by our calculation.
Those figures count only cases where a parent receives services from the state child support program, such as help establishing paternity, setting an order, or collecting payments. Support orders entered in a divorce or paternity case and paid without the state program’s involvement are not in this count, so Missouri’s total number of support orders is higher.
Whichever way a case starts, the amount is set the same way, through Missouri’s Form 14 child support guidelines, which weigh both parents’ incomes, the number of children, and costs such as health insurance and child care. You can estimate an amount with our Missouri child support calculator. Our Missouri child support guide walks through how that calculation works and when an order can be changed.
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How Many Missouri Grandparents Are Raising Grandchildren?
About 42,577 Missouri grandparents are responsible for the grandchildren who live with them, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey (margin of error ±4,009). They are part of a larger group of 104,767 grandparents who share a home with their grandchildren under 18.
For many of these families, the arrangement is not short-term. More than half of the grandparents raising grandchildren (22,273) have done so for five years or more, by our calculation from the same survey. About two-thirds of them are women, and about two-thirds are married.
A grandparent raising a grandchild without legal authority, such as a court order or a guardianship, can run into problems enrolling the child in school, consenting to medical care, or keeping the child if a parent comes back. Our guide to grandparents’ rights in Missouri explains visitation, third-party custody, and guardianship.
How Many Missouri Children in State Custody Live With Relatives?
More than half of Missouri children in state custody are placed with relatives. In fiscal year 2025 (July 2024 through June 2025), 8,827 of the 16,512 children who were in Children’s Division custody at some point that year were last placed in a relative’s home, about 53% by our calculation, according to the Missouri Children’s Division FY 2025 Annual Report, available from the Children’s Division annual reports page. Another 4,586 were in foster homes, so relative placements outnumbered foster homes nearly two to one.
The number of Missouri children in state custody has also fallen, from 20,231 in fiscal year 2021 to 16,512 in fiscal year 2025. Locally, 1,406 children in St. Louis County, 996 in the City of St. Louis, 712 in Jefferson County, and 405 in St. Charles County were in state custody during fiscal year 2025.
How Many Adoptions From Foster Care Happen in Missouri?
Missouri finalized 1,250 adoptions of children in state custody in fiscal year 2025, down 15.9% from 1,486 the year before, according to the Children’s Division FY 2025 Annual Report. That was the lowest total of the five years the report covers. These figures count only adoptions of children in state custody, not stepparent or private adoptions of children who were never in state custody.
What Do These Numbers Mean for Your Case?
Statistics describe thousands of families at once. They cannot tell you how a judge will rule on your custody schedule, what your support will be, or how long your divorce will take. Those answers depend on your facts, your county, and the choices you and the other parent make along the way. Our guide to divorce in Missouri walks through the process from filing to judgment.
Bardol Law Firm handles family law only, for clients in St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis, St. Charles County and Jefferson County. Every attorney at the firm has at least two years of family law experience.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Missouri Family Law Statistics
What is the divorce rate in Missouri?
Missouri’s divorce rate was 2.4 divorces per 1,000 residents in 2024, according to provisional figures from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The state recorded 15,191 divorces that year.
Is Missouri’s divorce rate going up or down?
Down. Missouri’s divorce rate fell from 5.1 per 1,000 residents in 1990 to 2.4 in 2024, and provisional figures for early 2025 show divorces still declining.
How many Missouri divorces involve children?
About 45% of Missouri divorces in 2023 involved at least one child, affecting at least 13,460 children, based on our calculation from state vital statistics.
Do most Missouri divorces end in joint custody?
Yes, in recent state data. Of 2023 Missouri divorces in which custody was recorded, about 77% ended in joint custody, 16% with custody to the wife and 6% to the husband, by our calculation from state vital statistics. Joint custody does not necessarily mean equal parenting time.
How many divorces are filed in St. Louis County each year?
In fiscal year 2025, 2,693 dissolution of marriage cases were filed in St. Louis County, according to the Missouri Judicial Report Supplement. Counting every new family case, including paternity and custody cases, the St. Louis County Circuit Court opened 5,404 in 2025, based on our count of Case.net records.
How does Missouri’s divorce rate compare to other states?
Missouri’s 2024 divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 residents was in the middle of its eight neighboring states, according to the CDC. Illinois, Kansas, and Iowa were lower, and Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma were higher.
How long do family court cases take in Missouri?
In fiscal year 2025, 87.6% of Missouri domestic relations cases were finished within 10 months, and the average case took 149 days. That is short of the courts’ own standard of 90% within 10 months. A divorce cannot be finished sooner than 30 days after filing.
How many grandparents are raising grandchildren in Missouri?
About 42,577 Missouri grandparents are responsible for grandchildren living with them, according to the Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey. More than half have been responsible for five years or more.
Where These Numbers Come From
We used official government sources wherever they exist and noted the year each figure covers. Some agencies report by calendar year and others by Missouri’s state fiscal year, which runs July 1 through June 30. Figures marked “by our calculation” are simple math on the published numbers, such as a percentage or a total.
Bardol Law Firm Case.net count. We counted new 2025 family cases in each St. Louis-area circuit court using the final case number assigned in that court’s family case series on Missouri Case.net, searched October 8, 2026. Orders of protection and modification motions are not included.
- Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Provisional Vital Statistics, December 2024 and March 2025
- Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Missouri Vital Statistics 2023, Table 31 (marriages by month) and Table 38 (dissolutions by duration and children)
- CDC National Center for Health Statistics, divorce rates by state, 1990 to 2024 and marriage rates by state, 1990 to 2024
- Missouri Judicial Report Supplement, fiscal year 2025, Table 42 (domestic relations filings) and Table 64 (age of cases at disposition)
- Supreme Court of Missouri, Court Operating Rule 17 (case processing time standards)
- Missouri Department of Social Services, DSS Caseload Counter
- Missouri Children’s Division, FY 2025 Annual Report, Tables 18, 28, 35, and 36 (annual reports page)
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Table DP02, Missouri (data.census.gov)
- Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2026 KIDS COUNT Data Book profile for Missouri
We update this page when new official figures are released. Journalists, researchers, and organizations are welcome to use these figures. Please cite the original sources above and link to this page for the Bardol Law Firm Case.net count.
This page provides general information about Missouri family law statistics and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
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