Tonga has raised the minimum legal age for marriage to 18 under a new law that takes immediate effect, the Registrar General’s Office announced on Friday. The Civil Registrations and Digital Identification Act 2025 replaces the country’s previous births, deaths and marriages legislation and bars anyone younger than 18 from marrying “under any circumstances,” removing the parental-consent exception that had allowed 15-to-17-year-olds to wed.
“The public is hereby advised that a person younger than 18 years of age cannot marry,” the Registrar General’s Office said in its statement announcing the change. Officials described the Act as a modernisation of Tonga’s civil registration framework that also strengthens protections for young people, though the announcement did not detail enforcement mechanisms or penalties for breaches.
The shift closes a long-standing legal pathway for early marriage in Tonga. Until this Act, young people aged 15 to 17 could marry with parental consent, a provision critics said left girls in particular vulnerable to early union and curtailed educational and economic opportunities. By removing that carve-out, the new law establishes an absolute minimum age across the board.
Civil society groups welcomed the reform. The Women and Children Crisis Centre (WCCC) said the legislation reflects years of advocacy aimed at protecting girls from early marriage and ensuring they have greater access to education and independence. The WCCC’s statement framed the law as the culmination of sustained community and NGO work to change national policy on youth rights and child protection.
Government officials have characterised the Act as part of a wider update to Tonga’s systems for civil registration and digital identification. The name of the legislation signals an intent to bring births, deaths and marriages registration into a modernised digital framework, although the Registrar General’s bulletin focused specifically on the immediate change to marriage age rather than technical aspects of digital ID rollout.
The immediate effect of the law means marriages involving anyone under 18 that might previously have been authorised by parents are now no longer permitted. How the change will be implemented at the community and registration level, and whether transitional provisions apply to ongoing processes, has not been clarified in the Registrar General’s announcement. Civil society groups and legal experts are likely to press for guidance from officials on enforcement and support services for young people affected by the change.
The move marks a significant legal shift in Tonga’s approach to child protection and family law, aligning national legislation with the principle of 18 as the threshold into adulthood. Supporters say it should help reduce early marriage and expand opportunities for education and independence among young women; critics, if any emerge, have yet to publicly challenge the new provisions.
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