Origin

How many residents of the Netherlands were born abroad?

On 1 January 2025, the Netherlands had 18 million inhabitants, 16.8 percent of whom were born abroad. They came to live in the Netherlands as migrants. That amounts to slightly more than 3 million people.

The remaining 15 million inhabitants were born in the Netherlands. Among them are 2.1 million people who are children of migrants. They have one or two parents who were born abroad. Of these, just over half (more than 1.1 million) have one parent born abroad and one born in the Netherlands, while just under half (968 thousand) have two parents born abroad. In total, 11.7 percent of the population was born in the Netherlands to one or both parents born abroad.

If you would you like to know more about this subject, please refer to our dossier on Asylum, migration and integration.