Portugal's population surpasses 11.4 million after foreign resident review

Portugal's population has surpassed 11.4 million, according to an extraordinary revision by the National Statistics Institute (INE). The 2025 figure stands at 11,424,031, a substantial increase driven by updated data on foreign residents.

The statistical update also revised the 2024 population to 11,387,222, significantly higher than the previous estimate of 10.75 million. This correction primarily stems from the inclusion of administrative data for immigrants whose presence was not fully reflected in earlier official statistics.

Foreign citizens now number 1,597,539, making up nearly 14% of the total population. This confirms the growing impact of immigration on Portugal's demographic trends. The INE's revision, initiated earlier this year, integrated information from the Agency for Integration, Migrations and Asylum (AIMA) and other administrative databases, acknowledging the need to recalculate figures due to the regularization of tens of thousands of pending migration cases.

Since 2021, Portugal's resident population has grown by over 824,000 people, largely due to migration flows. These flows have compensated for a negative natural population balance, where deaths exceed births, for years. While demographic aging remains a significant structural challenge, the influx of working-age foreign nationals offers some moderation to this trend. Portugal has seen continuous population growth since 2019, fueled by a positive migration balance, despite maintaining one of Europe's lowest fertility rates and a population structure increasingly weighted towards those over 65.