Legal status of same-sex marriage

This article is about the status of same-sex marriage around the world. For the status of same-sex union legislation, see Same-sex union legislation.
See also: LGBTQ rights by country or territory

The legal status of same-sex marriage has changed in recent years in numerous jurisdictions around the world. The current trends and consensus of political authorities and religions throughout the world are summarized in this article.

Recognition has been achieved through various mechanisms: legislative actions, high court rulings declaring statutory bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional, and direct democracy where the electorate voted in favor of legalization through referendums or national postal surveys.

The first country to legalize same-sex marriage was the Netherlands, where such marriages have been legal since 1 April 2001. The most recent country to extend full marriage rights to same-sex couples as of 2026 is Thailand, where the law took effect 23 January 2025.

On 25 November 2025, the European Court of Justice ruled that all member states of the European Union must recognize a lawful marriage between two European Union citizens of the same sex from another member country.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.