Population; households and population dynamics; from 1899

Population; households and population dynamics; from 1899

Periods Private Households Average householdsize (number)
2023 2.12
Source: CBS.
Explanation of symbols

Dataset is not available.


The most important key figures about population, households, population growth, births, deaths, migration, marriages, marriage dissolutions and change of nationality of the Dutch population.

CBS is in transition towards a new classification of the population by origin. Greater emphasis is now placed on where a person was born, aside from where that person’s parents were born. The term ‘migration background’ is no longer used in this regard. The main categories western/non-western are being replaced by categories based on continents and a few countries that share a specific migration history with the Netherlands. The new classification is being implemented gradually in tables and publications on population by origin.

Data available from: 1899

Status of the figures:
All data in this publication are final data.

Changes as of 15 December 2023:
None, this is a new table. This table succeeds the table Population; households and population dynamics; 1899-2019. See section 3.
The following changes have been made:
- The underlying topic folders regarding 'migration background' have been replaced by 'Born in the Netherlands' and 'Born abroad';
- The origin countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey have been assigned to the continent of Asia (previously Europe).

When will the new figures be published?
The figures for the population development in 2023 and the population on 1 January 2024 will be published in the second quarter of 2024.

Description topics

Private Households
A collection of one or more people sharing the same living space, who provide their own everyday needs in a private, non-commercial way.
For 1960-1987 the figures refer to the situation on 31 December, for 1988-1994 to the midyear situation, from 1995 onwards to the situation on 1 January.

Break in series households
From 2011 onwards a new process has been used for the production of figures on household composition. This new method uses data from the municipal population register (GBA) and tax declarations of cohabiting couples. Although the results based on the new production method are in line with previous results, small shifts have occurred in the number of households by composition in 2011. The largest shift is in the number of 'Other households', that is now smaller. The number of persons in institutional households on 1 January 2011 is 12,000 higher than on 1 January 2010. About half of this increase was the result of improvements in the survey method.
Average householdsize
Average number of people in a private household.