Tallinn's population decreases as net migration turns negative
For the past five years, the number of births has been lower than the number of deaths in Tallinn. In addition, net migration has now also turned negative, meaning more people are leaving the capital than moving there.
Tallinn's population declined last year and data from the first five months of this year indicates the decline is continuing. At the beginning of the year, the capital's population was just under 460,000, about 500 fewer than the year before. As of May, just over 457,000 people live in Tallinn, a decrease of roughly 2,400 since the start of the year.
Last year, Tallinn's population fell by just over 1,300 people. The previous year, it grew by about 600. The population also increased in 2023 by around 3,500 and in 2022 by 13,500. That sharp increase was driven by the arrival of Ukrainian refugees: in April 2022 alone, Tallinn's population grew by about 2,000 people.
The fact that migration has resulted in more years of population growth than decline in Tallinn so far this decade, however, obscures the reality that natural population growth has been negative in the capital since 2020, with deaths outnumbering births every year.
Last year, the decline in natural population growth in Tallinn was smaller than in the previous two years, with a natural decrease of 776 people. Although fewer than 10,000 children were born nationwide during the year — a threshold previously crossed only once before — the number of births in Tallinn actually increased, rising to 3,409 from 3,262 the previous year.
From January through May this year, only one month saw more births in Tallinn than during the same month last year. In May, 260 children were born in the capital, eight more than a year earlier. During the other four months, the number of births was 68 lower than during the same period last year. Overall, 60 fewer children were born in Tallinn during the first five months of this year than in the corresponding period in 2025.
Between 2005 and 2019, births outnumbered deaths in the capital every year. Since 2020, however, the opposite has been true. Between 2021 and 2024, around 1,000 more people died than were born in Tallinn each year. As noted, that gap narrowed last year.
The number of births in Tallinn has been declining since 2017, with last year marking the first annual increase since then. In 2016, the last year in which births increased compared with the previous year, 5,126 children were born in Tallinn. By 2024, the final year of the uninterrupted decline, that figure had fallen to 3,262 — a drop of just under 40 percent over nine years.
Although the number of births has been declining throughout this decade, the number of deaths has also been falling, preventing the natural decrease from becoming even more pronounced.
Net migration also dips into the red
Compared with the first two decades of this century — with the exception of the early 2000s — the 2020s have seen clearly lower birth rates. However, more children are being born than in the 1990s and the natural decrease is also less severe.
For example, in 1997 and 1998, just over 3,000 children were born each year, while the natural decrease was around 2,000 people annually. In 1994, the natural decrease reached 2,631 people.
One could therefore conclude that periods of positive and negative natural population growth tend to alternate in Tallinn every couple of decades. Population forecasts commissioned by the City of Tallinn, meanwhile, project that the capital's population will grow over the coming decades regardless of differences in the assumptions underlying the various scenarios.
If the population does grow, the forecasts indicate that migration will account for a large share of that increase. Net migration consists of both domestic and international migration. In Tallinn's case, domestic migration refers to people moving to the capital from elsewhere in Estonia or leaving Tallinn to settle elsewhere in the country. International migration refers to people arriving from or departing for other countries.
Somewhat unexpectedly, Tallinn has recorded negative net migration over the past two years. Last year, net migration was negative by 3,171 people, consisting of a domestic migration balance of -2,177 and an international migration balance of -994.
In 2024, Tallinn's net migration stood at -198. It is worth noting that international migration was positive that year, with a net gain of 808 people.
Domestic migration has been negative in Tallinn since 2018. Over that period, more than 12,000 more people moved from the capital to other parts of Estonia than moved to Tallinn from elsewhere in the country. By comparison, between 2015 and 2017, nearly 4,800 more people moved to Tallinn from elsewhere in Estonia than left the capital for another part of the country.
Combined, domestic and international migration resulted in net migration of more than 40,000 people to Tallinn between 2015 and 2025. During the same period, the city's population grew by about 38,000. It should be noted, however, that in 2022 alone, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tallinn recorded net international migration of 20,000 people.
International migration statistics show that, over the past couple of years, net migration among German and Finnish citizens has been negative in Tallinn, meaning more have left than moved to the city. By contrast, net migration has been positive among Ukrainian and British citizens.
Recent forecast still predicts clear population growth
The baseline scenario in the latest population forecast, prepared by the University of Tartu at the end of 2025, projects that Tallinn's population will grow by 6,200 people by 2035 and by about 22,300 people by 2050. If the forecast were to prove accurate, which is rarely the case, the capital's population would reach nearly 480,000 by the middle of the century.
The scenario assumes that net migration remains at the average level of the previous 10 years, excluding the exceptional effects of recent major crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. It also assumes that the number of births will initially decline before increasing somewhat and that life expectancy will continue to rise, resulting in fewer deaths each year.
The forecast assumes that life expectancy in Estonia in 2025 was 73.7 years for men and 83.3 years for women. By 2050, it projects life expectancy will increase to 80 years for men and 87 years for women.
According to the forecast, the number of children up to age 9 will continue to decline until 2033 before beginning to increase. Even so, births are expected to remain low enough that, by 2050, the share of Tallinn's population aged 19 and under will fall by four percentage points, while the share aged 60 and older will increase by six percentage points.
Tallinn's total population figures for the various years are based on the city's own data, which is drawn from the Population Register. Statistics on births, deaths and net migration come from Statistics Estonia, meaning there are some differences between the two datasets because they are derived from different sources.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski
