Dutch population growth continues to slow; 23,000 new residents in first half of 2026

Dutch population growth continues to slow; 23,000 new residents in first half of 2026 In the first half of 2026, the Dutch population grew by over 23,000 people. That is about 14,000 fewer people than the 37,000 growth in the first half of last year, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported. The Dutch population growth has been declining since 2022. At the end of June, the Netherlands had 18.15 million residents. Natural population growth in the Netherlands has been negative for some time, meaning that more people die than babies are born. The population growth is entirely due to immigration. In the first half of this year, fewer immigrants came to the Netherlands. The number of emigrants also decreased slightly. In total, 126,000 people moved to the Netherlands, and 95,000 moved out of the country, resulting in a net population increase from international migration of over 31,000 people. That is nearly 14,000 fewer than in the same period last year. The decrease was mainly due to less asylum migration. In the first half of 2026, 10,000 people from Syria registered with a Dutch municipality, down from 16,000 a year earlier. Over a thousand Syrian people also left the Netherlands, bringing the net increase to 9,000. “Fewer people also arrived on balance from Iraq, Iran, Somalia, and Yemen—countries from which primarily asylum migrants come—than in 2025,” CBS said. On balance, fewer people also came to the Netherlands from Turkey, China, India, and Poland. These are largely labor and family migrants. More people moved here from Ukraine. And there was a net increase of 2,000 people moving to the Netherlands from another European Union country. As in previous years, the natural population growth was negative. In the first half of this year, 82,000 children were born, 800 more than in the same period in 2025. And 90,200 people died, compared to 89,600 in the first half of 2025. That brings the natural population growth to -8,100 in the first half of 2026. Population growth in the first half of 2026 is the lowest since 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic halted almost all movement of people. In the first half of that year, the population increased by over 18,000 people. Between 2021 and 2026, the number of inhabitants grew by an average of 50,000 people in the first six months. 2022 was an outlier here. In the first half of that year, the population increased by 119,000 due to the immigration of Ukrainian refugees after the Russian invasion.