What country in the world has no divorce?

The Last Holdouts: Where Divorce Doesn’t Exist

While divorce is legally recognized in most countries around the world, two places stand out for their absence of it: the Philippines and Vatican City. These are the only jurisdictions where there is no legal procedure for divorce—though the reality is a bit more nuanced.

In the Philippines, marriage is considered a permanent bond under civil law. The country, predominantly Catholic, has never passed legislation allowing divorce for its general population. Instead, couples seeking to legally separate must pursue annulment, a complex, lengthy, and often costly process that declares the marriage invalid from the start. However, there is an important exception: Filipino Muslims are granted the right to divorce under Sharia law, which recognizes Islamic personal laws, including the ability to legally end a marriage.

Vatican City, the spiritual and administrative center of the Roman Catholic Church, is an ecclesiastical state governed by religious doctrine. As such, it does not have civil divorce procedures. Marriage, in the eyes of the Church, is a sacred, lifelong covenant. Like in the Philippines, the only way to dissolve a marriage for Catholics is through annulment—a religious declaration that the marriage was not valid according to canon law.

These two places reflect deep-rooted religious and cultural values around marriage. While modern legal systems in other nations have adapted to changing social norms, the Philippines and Vatican City remain unique in upholding marriage as indissoluble under civil law. Still, debates continue in the Philippines about legalizing divorce, especially for non-Muslim citizens facing difficult or abusive marriages.

So, while most of the world offers a legal exit from marriage, these two corners of the globe hold firm—divorce may not exist, but annulment remains the only path to legal freedom.