diff --git a/include/boost/uuid/uuid.hpp b/include/boost/uuid/uuid.hpp
index acaa58de..2e1d0b74 100644
--- a/include/boost/uuid/uuid.hpp
+++ b/include/boost/uuid/uuid.hpp
@@ -38,6 +38,16 @@ struct uuid
 
     // data
 
+    // Align uuid objects to 16 bytes on 64-bit platforms for performance.
+    // On most 32-bit platforms, default stack and dynamic memory alignment is lower than 16
+    // (typically 4 or 8), which makes it problematic to require uuid alignment of 16.
+#if (defined(__SIZEOF_POINTER__) && (__SIZEOF_POINTER__ >= 8)) || \
+    defined(__x86_64__) /* This covers x86-x32 */ || \
+    defined(_M_AMD64) || defined(_M_ARM64)
+    BOOST_ALIGNMENT(16)
+#else
+    BOOST_ALIGNMENT(4)
+#endif
     std::uint8_t data[ 16 ];
 
 public:
diff --git a/test/test_alignment.cpp b/test/test_alignment.cpp
index 4a8a5838..9d9b8af3 100644
--- a/test/test_alignment.cpp
+++ b/test/test_alignment.cpp
@@ -22,8 +22,8 @@ struct X2
 
 int main()
 {
-    BOOST_TEST_EQ( offsetof(X1, b), 1 );
-    BOOST_TEST_EQ( offsetof(X2, b), 2 );
+    BOOST_TEST_EQ( offsetof(X1, b) % alignof(uuid), 0 );
+    BOOST_TEST_EQ( offsetof(X2, b) % alignof(uuid), 0 );
 
     return boost::report_errors();
 }