The Dutch population will have grown less strongly in 2023 than a year earlier. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reports this based on figures up to December. Last year the population grew by 140,000 inhabitants, compared to 221,000 a year earlier. The Netherlands now has 17.9 million inhabitants.
The population growth is entirely due to foreign migration, but fewer people have emigrated to the Netherlands than a year earlier. The net migration (the number of immigrants minus emigrants) was 138,000 people. A large part came from the former Soviet Union (24,500 people) and a further 16,500 migrants from Syria and 6,600 people from Poland settled in the Netherlands.
Fewer people came to the Netherlands from Ukraine, according to CBS. Since the start of the war, 139,600 Ukrainians have settled in the Netherlands. A total of 4.2 million Ukrainians have been accommodated in the European Union.
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Furthermore, more people died in the Netherlands than were born. An estimated 169,000 people died, while 165,000 children were born. The fertility rate in the Netherlands is expected to be 1.43 children per woman in 2023. That number has been declining since 2010.