Estonia's population declines for first time in 9 years
As of January 1, 2025, Estonia's population had declined by nearly 5,000 on year to 1,369,995, according to revised figures released by Statistics Estonia on Wednesday. The last time the country's population saw an annual decrease was in 2016.
Last year, a total of 9,690 births and 15,756 deaths were recorded in Estonia, according to a press release.
Terje Trasberg, population and education statistics team lead at Statistics Estonia, said that 18,634 people immigrated to and 17,260 people emigrated from Estonia last year.
"Last year, natural increase was negative at -5,053 people, while net migration was positive at 13,856 people," Trasberg noted. "As the negative natural increase deepened compared with previous years, the positive net migration could no longer compensate for it. Therefore, the population fell by nearly 5,000 people last year."
Births drop below 10,000
Last year, and for the first time in the history of Estonia's population statistics, which dates back to 1919, the number of births registered fell below 10,000. Compared with 10,949 in 2023, births were down by 11.5 percent.
"The average age of women giving birth continues to rise," Trasberg noted. "Compared with ten years ago, the age of first-time mothers has increased by more than two years, and now stands at 28.9 years. This is one year lower than the EU average."
Just under 15,800 deaths were recorded in 2024, similarly to both 2023 and the pre-pandemic period.
"Unfortunately, the three-year decline in the number of births continued in 2024, and deepened further last year, leading to a new negative birth rate record," the team lead explained. She added that Estonia's low birth rate is still driven by uncertainty about the future and turbulent times in society.
Immigration down, emigration up
Last year, 18,634 people migrated to Estonia, while 17,260 people left. Net migration stood at 1,374, the lowest figure seen since 2016.
"The number of immigrants is comparable to that of the period before the war in Ukraine and before the COVID-19 pandemic, while the number of emigrants, affected among other things by the emigration of Ukrainians, is the highest in the last decade," Trasberg said.
She added that emigration in 2024 exceeded the past decade's average by 5,000 people.
Last year, 5,218 Estonian citizens arrived in the country and 6,472 left, i.e. there were 1,254 fewer arrivals than departures. Meanwhile, 7,013 Ukrainian citizens arrived in Estonia — down from 33,217 in 2022 and 13,082 in 2023 — while 3,829 left the country.
"Compared with a year earlier, there were half as many Ukrainian citizens arriving in Estonia in 2024, and nearly five times fewer than in 2022," the analyst explained, adding that the emigration of Ukrainian citizens also increased.
"The immigration of Russian citizens fell markedly last year," she continued. "Their net migration was negative again after two decades, i.e. there were almost twice as many Russian citizens leaving Estonia as there were arriving."
Number of ethnic Estonians up
As of January 1, 82 percent of Estonia's population — or 1,123,000 people — is of Estonian citizenship, 6 percent of Russian citizenship, 5 percent of Ukrainian citizenship, 4 percent is stateless and 3 percent citizens of some other country.
The number of people of Estonian ethnic nationality increased by almost 3,000 last year, and totaling 935,000, ethnic Estonians account for 68 percent of the country's total population.
The number of ethnic Russians, meanwhile, fell by more than 10,000.
Estonian is spoken as a native language by 65 percent of the population, or around 893,000 people. Among Estonian citizens, 83 percent consider themselves ethnic Estonians, while 79 percent speak Estonian as a native language.
