More British people moving to the Netherlands

In 2019, 2.6 thousand native Dutch people (i.e. people born in the Netherlands) emigrated to the United Kingdom. This is the smallest number in twenty years. Dutch emigration to the UK has shown a substantial decline since 2015. The number of Dutch migrants returning from the UK did not increase last year. On balance, only a few hundred Dutch migrants moved to the UK in 2019. The number still stood at slightly under 2.3 thousand in 2015.

On balance, 3.6 thousand British moved to the Netherlands

Concurrently with the drop in Dutch emigration to the UK, migration of native British people to the Netherlands has risen steadily throughout these years. In 2019, the Netherlands received 6.7 thousand native British immigrants, i.e. a 60-percent rise on 2015. The number of British remigrating from the Netherlands to the UK rose as well in 2019, by a few hundred. Last year’s net migration flow consisted of 3.6 thousand British people moving to the Netherlands.

More foreign nationals as well moving from the UK to the Netherlands

The flow of non-Dutch and non-British migrants moving from the UK to the Netherlands has seen a continuous rise for several years as well. They include relatively many Polish, Spanish, Italian and French citizens. The largest group of emigrants moving from the Netherlands  to the UK - aside from British and Dutch citizens - are Somalis.

Rapidly falling net migration in EU-27

Patterns of Dutch migration between the UK and the Netherlands may be seen as somewhat similar to migration patterns between the UK and Europe (i.e. the EU-27). The EU-27 as a whole has a negative migration balance with the UK: more EU citizens move to the UK than from it. Just as in the Netherlands, this net migration has declined sharply. The number of EU citizens who left the EU-27 to settle in the United Kingdom has declined by one-third since the beginning of 2016, whereas the number of EU citizens returning from the UK to the EU-27 has nearly doubled. On balance, in 2019 almost 50 thousand EU citizens settled in the UK, down from over 200 thousand in 2015.