Adoptions in Germany fall to lowest level since reunification

A total of 3,517 children were adopted nationwide, the Federal Statistical Office said. That was 4% fewer than in 2024, meaning 145 fewer children were adopted.

"One explanation for the overall decline in case numbers is the continuing drop in 'classic' non-relative adoptions, meaning adoptions by people who are neither stepparents nor relatives of the child," the statisticians wrote.

More than a quarter of the children were under 1 year old at the time of adoption last year. Thirty-one percent of those adopted were 1 or 2 years old. The average age was 5.1 years old, the office said.

In 74% of cases most children were living with a couple consisting of a biological parent and a stepparent before adoption, the Federal Statistical Office said. Ten percent were adopted from a hospital or a mother-and-child home and 8% from a foster family. 

In 3% of cases there had been an anonymous birth or the child had been left at a "baby box." These are hatches set up at hospitals or other public social service institutions, and the baby can be anonymously left there and immediately taken care of by a medical professional. 

More adoptions by female couples 

According to the statisticians only 1.6% of adoptions, or 56 children, were adopted from abroad last year. The children most commonly came from Thailand, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sri Lanka.

Most children were adopted by a new partner of one of their biological parents. This situation represented 75% of all adoptions last year, compared to 54% in 2010. This was a new record high.

"The development is due in particular to stepmothers in same-sex partnerships: if a child is born into an existing partnership of two women the partner can only obtain the legal status of a biological parent through a stepchild adoption," the Federal Statistical Office said.

Of roughly 1,590 stepmother adoptions last year 80% involved same-sex female couples who had not provided any information about the child's father, the office said.