Around 29,700 more people moved to Sweden than left the country in 2024, an increase from 21,000 the year before, new figures from Statistics Sweden show.
The full-year figures paint a different picture than the six-month data from last summer, which suggested that more people were leaving the country than arriving – hailed by the migration minister at the time as a reversal of long-standing immigration patterns.
There were also 7,200 more births than deaths in the country in 2024.
All numbers in this article are rounded to the nearest 100.
Primarily due to immigration, the Swedish population grew by 0.3 percent (or 36,000 people to be exact – slightly more than in 2023), despite the fact that 2024 saw the fewest children born in Sweden in 22 years. Despite this, 2024 was among the years with the lowest population increase in percent since the turn of the millennium.
A total of 116,200 people moved to Sweden in 2024. The top three countries of birth of newcomers were people born in Ukraine (28,100), Sweden (11,900) and India (5,800), followed by Germany, China, Syria, Poland, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran.
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The large number of Ukrainians is due to the fact that Ukrainians who were living in Sweden under the EU's temporary protection directive were from June 2024 able to apply for a personal number in Sweden, formally registering them in the statistics as having moved to the country.
A total of 86,400 people moved away from Sweden in 2024 ‒ an increase of 13,000, or 18 percent, on 2023.
More than a quarter, 28 percent, of these were registered as moving to "unknown country," the destination which was used by the Tax Agency when it began de-registering people who no longer live in Sweden from the population register in 2023. This work continued into 2024, so many of those registered as leaving may have left prior to last year, with their departure only being registered this year.
The most common destinations for those leaving Sweden last year, aside from "unknown country", were Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, the United States, Spain, Poland, Finland, India and Iraq.
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