The population of the Netherlands grew by a record 120,000 in the first six months of this year, but much of that was down to the arrival of 76,600 refugees from Ukraine, new figures from national statistics office CBS show.

In total, 195,000 people moved to the Netherlands in the 2022 first half and 72,000 people left.

People fleeing the conflict in Ukraine accounted for 55% of the new 138,000 new arrivals from outside the EU, the CBS said. Excluding them, the population would have grown by about 50,000.

More people died than were born – there were 81,000 births and 84,000 deaths – taking the net increase in the population to 119,900, or 17.7 million.

2021

The CBS said last week that a total of 208,000 foreign nationals moved to the Netherlands last year, after a year in which immigration fell sharply because of the coronavirus restrictions.

The biggest group, nearly 117,500, came from other EU countries or the EFTA, while returning Dutch nationals from abroad accounted for almost 44,500 ‘new’ arrivals.

Nearly 90,700 people came from outside Europe, of whom 29,000 came to join family members and 21,000 requested asylum. The trouble in Afghanistan and Syria helped drive refugee numbers up by 75%, the CBS said.