Germany's population shrank in 2025 for the first time in five years as lower immigration levels failed to offset the country's aging demographics and persistently low birth rates, according to official data released Tuesday.
The Federal Statistical Office said the population dropped by about 110,000 people, or 0.1%, to 83.5 million in 2025.
The agency attributed the decline to a widening natural population decrease – deaths again outpacing births – and a sharp slowdown in net migration, the difference between people moving to Germany and those leaving.
The death-birth gap widened to 352,000 in 2025, up from 331,000 a year earlier, the statistics office said. At the same time, net migration fell to 235,000 from 430,000 the previous year, leaving Germany with too few newcomers to offset the natural population decline.
Germany’s foreign resident population grew only slightly – up 39,000 to 12.4 million – marking one of the weakest annual increases in more than a decade, according to the data.
The largest foreign nationality group remained Turkish citizens (about 1.385 million), followed by Ukrainians (about 1.167 million), Syrians (about 856,000), Romanians (about 763,000) and Poles (about 700,000), the statistics office said.
