The Federal Statistical Office has published new figures on the proportion of people with a migrant background, as reported by the Mediendienst Integration. According to these figures, around 25.2 million people with a migrant background were living in Germany in 2024 – that is 30.4 percent of the population (in 2023, the proportion was 29.7 percent). Among children and young people aged 20 and under, the proportion is 42.4 percent. The office defines people with a migrant background as those who were not born with German citizenship themselves or who have at least one parent who was not born with German citizenship.
13 million migrants with a German passport
Of the 25.2 million people with a migrant background, around 13 million have a German passport, which means that around 12.2 million are foreigners. 15.9 million people in Germany have “personal experience of migration,” meaning that they were born abroad and immigrated to Germany.
The total population is therefore divided into 69.6 percent Germans without a migration background, 15.7 percent Germans with a migration background, and 14.7 percent people with foreign citizenship. Germany’s residents with a “migration background” are significantly younger than those without, with an average age of 36 compared to 47.4.
Fewer foreign residents than previously assumed
The Federal Statistical Office had to recalculate the figures because the representative population survey conducted in 2022 showed that there were 1.4 million fewer people living in Germany than previously assumed. The number of foreigners in particular was overestimated: there were around one million fewer foreigners living in Germany. Above all, the number of foreigners and refugees who have been living in Germany for less than 10 years was overestimated. In fact, there are 125,000 Syrians living in Germany, 10 percent fewer than previously assumed. The populations from Afghanistan and Ukraine were also overestimated by 9 percent each. Those from Iraq were overestimated by 8 percent. The reason for this is probably that many of these people left the country without deregistering.
Research by the Media Service for Integration:
Population | Migration | Facts and figures | MEDIA SERVICE FOR INTEGRATION
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