China expands marriage services with outdoor sites and archive digitisation

9 articles · Updated · Global Times · May 10

A year after the rules changed, authorities handled 682,000 cross-region registrations, 247,000 record transfers and digitised nearly 430 million archives, with 19 provinces completing full data supplementation.
The 2025 regulations let couples marry at any eligible registry nationwide without household registration books, while one-stop services can combine marriage, birth and hukou status changes with as few as three documents.
China also has 525 marriage registration venues in parks and landmarks and 2,045 marriage customs exhibition sites; 1.697 million couples married and 622,000 divorced in the first quarter.

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As marriage reforms weaken the hukou system, will it finally bridge the nation's urban-rural divide?