Based on new data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the population in the Netherlands has grown again in the first six months of 2024, albeit less than compared to the same period last year. Despite there being fewer immigrants, foreign migration is still the only reason the Dutch population has gotten larger. 

Immigration to the Netherlands decreased in 2024

In the first half of 2024, the Dutch population grew by 39.000 people to 17,98 million residents. This is around 13.600 fewer new inhabitants compared to the same period in 2023. 

From January to June, 138.000 people moved to the Netherlands, while 92.000 left the country. This means that 46.000 residents were added to the net population through immigration. However, this number has decreased since last year when foreign migration grew the population by around 58.000 people. 

According to CBS, fewer people moved to the Netherlands and more moved away. Together with a drop in skilled worker migration, this could be because the country is becoming less attractive to expats due to new plans by the Dutch government to reduce immigration, such as limiting the 30 percent ruling. The government's plans are part of an effort to maintain the country's standard of living, especially concerning finding adequate housing, as well as the provision of high-quality healthcare and education, among other essentials, as a large population makes it hard to sustain.

In 2024, the most internationals came to the Netherlands from Syria (11.300), Ukraine (6.600), Turkey (4.500), Romania (2.000) and South Africa (1.600). These numbers show fewer migrants from European and Asian countries than in previous years.

Dutch population dropped based on births and deaths

At the same time, the population growth from births, calculated by subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births, for the beginning of this year has also decreased. 

Even though there were more births in the Netherlands in the first half of 2024 than last year, more people died (88.400) than children were born (81.300). These results show a negative "natural growth" of -7.200, which is even lower than the -6.000 for 2023. 

From this data combined with the numbers on migration, CBS deduced that the population growth in the Netherlands is “entirely due to foreign migration”.

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