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Background Documentary evidence points to high unmet need for family planning across sub-Saharan Africa. Modern contraceptive use has been staggering over decades with unacceptable marginal increases given that one in three women still report unmet need in Ghana. This study sought to re-examine through a further analysis on the prevalence and determinants of unmet need for family planning in Ghana using married women extracted from the recent 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. Method Data was analyzed using univariate, bivariate, logistic and multinomial logistic regression models. Results Of the 4527 women, more than a third (35.17%) experienced unmet need of which 20.19% had unmet need for spacing while 14.98% reported unmet need for limiting. The logistic results showed that older aged women, being employed and women with higher ideal number of children were less likely to experience unmet need. However, women who did not know the couples’ preferred number of children, women who had more than one union and those with higher number of living biological children were more likely to report unmet need. From the multinomial model, an increase in age, residing in a rural area, and being employed were associated with lower risk of unmet need for spacing. Additionally, Women who did not know the couples’ ideal number of children, women who had higher age when they got married, and women with higher number of biological children were more likely to report unmet need for spacing. Women who had a higher number of ideal children, women who had secondary or higher education, women from higher socio-economic households, were less likely to report unmet need for limiting. . Conclusions We recommend the strengthening of contraception services in order to address the various age specific needs and women within the different socio-demographic sects so as to reduce unmet need. Addressing the needs of women with increasing number of living biological children is equally paramount. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s40834-018-0083-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.