Same-Sex Couples in the U.S.: What the Data Shows

More than a decade after Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, there's now solid federal data on same-sex couples. Here's what it says about how many there are, how they live and how they meet, along with what the numbers can and can't tell you.

The main sources are a June 2025 Pew Research Center report by Jake Hays and Rachel Minkin, which analyzes U.S. Census Bureau and American Community Survey (ACS) data and adds a survey of LGBTQ adults, and a November 2024 Census Bureau release on 2023 ACS data.

How Many Same-Sex Couples Are There in the U.S.?

According to the Census Bureau figures Pew analyzed:

Married couples went from slightly fewer than unmarried ones to clearly outnumbering them. Census didn't publish 2020 figures because of pandemic data-collection problems.

Same-sex couples are still a small share of all couples: 1.3% of married couples and 5.6% of cohabiting couples in 2023.

Where Do Same-Sex Married Couples Live?

Pew's ACS analysis found married same-sex couples are somewhat more likely than different-sex couples to live in the West (29% vs. 23%) and Northeast (19% vs. 17%), and less likely to live in the South (35% vs. 39%) and Midwest (17% vs. 21%). Every region has a substantial share.

At the state level, the Census Bureau reported that the District of Columbia had the highest share of same-sex couple households of any state or state equivalent, about 3%.

How Do Same-Sex Married Couples Compare With Different-Sex Couples?

Pew's analysis splits same-sex couples into couples of two men and couples of two women, because the patterns often differ.

Education (couples where the older spouse is 25 to 64):

Employment and income (couples where the older spouse is 18 to 64):

Children: 53% of different-sex married couples were raising at least one child under 18 at home, compared with 31% of couples of two women and 10% of couples of two men.

Remarriage: 34% of married couples of two women included at least one remarried spouse, compared with 27% of different-sex couples and 22% of couples of two men.

The Census Bureau's own 2023 release adds a few comparisons across all ages:

• Householders in same-sex married couples were younger on average (49.0) than those in opposite-sex married couples (53.1).
• 31% of same-sex married couples were interracial, compared with 19% of opposite-sex married couples.
• About 17% of married same-sex couple households had a child present, down from 19% in 2019. For married opposite-sex couples, the share rounded to 38% in both years.

Our post on interracial marriage statistics covers that trend among all newlyweds.

How Do Same-Sex Couples Meet?

Online, much more often than other couples.

In Pew's 2022 survey of U.S. adults (published in 2023), 24% of partnered lesbian, gay and bisexual adults said they met their current spouse or partner on a dating site or app, compared with about one in ten partnered adults overall. LGB adults were also more likely than straight adults to have ever used a dating site or app (51% vs. 28%). We cover the full report in what Pew research says about online dating.

Stanford's How Couples Meet and Stay Together data, analyzed by Michael Rosenfeld and colleagues in PNAS, shows the same pattern more strongly: about 65% of same-sex couples who met in 2017 met online. Our breakdown of how couples actually meet has the details.

The apps aren't always a good experience. In Pew's survey, LGB online daters were more likely than straight users to say they'd been overwhelmed by the number of messages at least sometimes in the past year (47% vs. 30%) and to have received unwanted sexual messages or images (56% vs. 34%). They were also more likely to describe their overall experience as positive (61% vs. 53%).

How Do Same-Sex Couples Describe Their Relationships?

Pew's survey of 3,959 LGBTQ adults, conducted in January 2025, included 1,154 people married to or living with a same-sex partner.

• 92% said their relationship was going at least fairly well, including 63% who said very well.
• Married respondents were more likely than cohabiting ones to say very well (69% vs. 54%). Pew found a similar married-cohabiting gap among different-sex couples in a 2019 survey.
• Fewer than half were very satisfied with specific parts of the relationship: how chores are divided (45%), how well they communicate (43%), how their partner balances work and personal life (43%) and their sex life (33%).

Why they married: Love, companionship and making a formal commitment were the most common major reasons. But 64% of people with a same-sex spouse also cited legal rights and benefits as a major reason, including 70% of men and 53% of women. People under 50 were much more likely than those 50 and older to cite wanting children someday (26% vs. 5%).

What This Means If You're Dating

Online dating matters more, so use it deliberately. If you're LGB, the data says you're more likely to meet a partner online and more likely to deal with message overload and unwanted contact along the way. Filtering hard for intent is worth the effort. Our post on app burnout signs covers when it's time to change approach.

Expect a wide range of life plans. The gap in who's raising kids is large and varies sharply between couples of two women and two men. That makes it worth raising early, the way we suggest in dating when you want kids.

Marriage is now the norm for same-sex couples who live together. Married households went from slightly fewer than unmarried ones in 2015 to clearly outnumbering them by 2023. The reasons people give are a mix of love and practical protection.

The Bottom Line

Same-sex couples head about 1.3 million U.S. households, and the number of married same-sex couples has grown by more than 80% since 2015. Compared with different-sex couples, they're more educated, more likely to both work, less likely to have children at home and far more likely to have met online. Most describe their relationships as going well, especially those who are married.

Sources:

• Rising Number of U.S. Households Are Headed by Married Same-Sex Couples — Jake Hays and Rachel Minkin, Pew Research Center (June 12, 2025), analyzing U.S. Census Bureau and American Community Survey data and a January 2025 survey of LGBTQ adults
• Percentage of Married and Unmarried, Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Couple Households With Children Down From 2019 to 2023 — Nestor Hernandez, U.S. Census Bureau (November 13, 2024)
• Key findings about online dating in the U.S. — Pew Research Center (February 2, 2023)
• From Looking for Love to Swiping the Field: The Experiences of U.S. Online Daters — Pew Research Center (February 2, 2023)
• Disintermediating your friends: How online dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting — Michael J. Rosenfeld, Reuben J. Thomas and Sonia Hausen, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(36) (2019)