Netherlands hitting 18 million residents today

The Netherlands will pass the 18 million inhabitants mark on Thursday, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) estimates. Eight years ago, the Netherlands reached 17 million residents. The growth from 16 to 17 million Netherlands residents took 15 years. According to CBS, the current population growth is mainly due to foreign migration. New inhabitants mainly come from Ukraine and Syria.

It is impossible to identify who exactly the 18 millionth Netherlands resident will be, said a spokesperson for CBS. Municipalities report newborns and immigrants in groups. According to him, there is a greater chance that it will be an immigrant than a newborn child because the growth in that group is greater than for babies.

Over the past eight years, the Dutch population grew by an average of 120,000 inhabitants per year, according to CBS. In the 15 years that the number of Dutch people went from 16 to 17 million, an average of 66,000 inhabitants were added each year.

Since 2015, the number of Dutch people has mainly increased due to immigration. And in 2022, 2023, and the first half of this year, the population growth was solely because there were more immigrants than emigrants. In that period, fewer babies were born than people died.

The population grew until the 1970s mainly because more babies were born than people died. After the Second World War, relatively many children were born - the baby boom. Between 1945 and 1970, the population grew by almost 4 million, which means an average of 150,000 new Dutch people per year. From 1970 onwards, people started having children later and had fewer of them.