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People · Scotland

Population

Census, mid-year estimates, births, deaths, natural change.

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NRS mid-2025 + Census 2022 headlines + 10-year mid-year series + 32 LA mid-2025.

  • Scotland mid-year population estimate

    5,545,500Published

    Highest ever mid-year estimate; published 14 July 2026. Mid-2025 subject to future revision with mid-2026.

  • Annual population change mid-2024 to mid-2025

    2,200Published

    Increase <0.1%; smaller than recent years.

  • Natural change (births minus deaths)

    -16,200Published

    11th consecutive year of negative natural change.

  • Total net migration

    17,900Published

    International + rest of UK combined.

  • Net international migration

    9,300Published

    Provisional; lowest in last five years.

  • Net migration from rest of UK

    8,600Published

  • Census 2022 usual resident population

    5,436,600Published

    Rounded estimate; CI +/-0.51% (+/-27,900).

  • Births (year to mid-2025)

    45,400Published

    Rounded national figure from NRS main points.

  • Deaths (year to mid-2025)

    61,600Published

    Rounded national figure from NRS main points.

Still missing

  • Natural change plus net migration is the mid-year change story — not a second population total.

Scotland mid-year population estimates

Scotland. Blank years are missing, not zero. Source

  • 2015-065,350,600
  • 2016-065,373,600
  • 2017-065,388,200
  • 2018-065,392,100
  • 2019-065,411,200
  • 2020-065,408,900
  • 2021-065,412,900
  • 2022-065,447,000
  • 2023-065,511,800
  • 2024-065,543,300
  • 2025-065,545,500

Verified 11 points 2015–2025 (exceeds 10-year preference). Incorporates mid-2023/2024 revisions published with mid-2025 (duplicate revised-only rows removed in cleanup). LA multi-year series published by NRS but not bulk-expanded here (single-year LA snapshot retained).

Sources