High birth deficit and less immigration - fewer people will live in Saarland in 2025
As of December 31, 2025, 1,007,342 people lived in Saarland. According to the Saarland Statistical Office, as in the previous year, the number of deaths significantly exceeded the number of births. During the same period, more people moved to Saarland than left it. However, the resulting migration surplus, which was significantly lower than that of the previous year, could not offset the large birth deficit.
As in previous years, the number of deaths in 2025 was significantly higher than the number of live births. The birth deficit amounted to 7,097 persons, increasing only slightly by 142 compared to 2024. This negative balance in natural population movement is offset by a positive migration balance. In 2025, around 2,434 more people moved to Saarland than left. However, the migration surplus was significantly lower than in the two previous years (2024: +5,104; 2023: +8,954).
At the end of the year, the smallest federal state in Germany was home to 853,186 people of German nationality as well as 154,156 people with non-German nationality. This is about 1,249 more non-German individuals than in 2024 (+0.8 percent). Their share of the population increased by 0.1 percentage points to 15.3 percent compared to the previous year. The share of Germans in the total population was therefore 84.7 percent at the end of 2025.
The number of residents with German citizenship has decreased by 0.7 percent compared to the previous year (–6,084).
Number of live births continues to decline
Last year, women residing in Saarland – both German and non-German – gave birth to 7,341 children, of which 190 were twins. The number of newborns thus decreased again compared to the previous year (–225 or nearly 3 percent). For 2,391 children, the parents were not married to each other, whereas for 4,950 children, the parents were married. Of the 7,341 new Saarlanders, 5,033 were German mothers and 2,308 were non-German mothers. The highest number of offspring was born to mothers aged between 33 and 34 years (536), followed by mothers aged between 30 and 31 years with 523 children.
At the county level, the Saarbrücken Regional Association recorded the highest number of newborns with 2,642 children, followed by the Saarlouis district with 1,429, the Neunkirchen district with 1,036, the Saarpfalz district with 992, the Merzig-Wadern district with 649, and the St. Wendel district with 594.
In the state capital, the most children were born with 1,541, followed by the cities of Neunkirchen (444), Völklingen (363), Homburg (354), and Saarlouis with 266 newborns. The fewest children were born in the municipalities of Gersheim (25), Perl (29), and Weiskirchen (36).
Number of deaths at an almost unchanged level
In 2025, a total of 14,438 people died nationwide, of which 6,961 were men and 7,477 women. The number of deaths thus remained almost unchanged compared to the previous year, with 14,521 deaths.
The highest number of deaths in 2025 occurred between the ages of 85 and 86 (688), between 88 and 89 (681), and between 87 and 88 with 671. At the ages of 104 and 106, 8 citizens of Saarland passed away.
More people moving in than moving out
In the past year, 26,644 people moved to Saarland; 9.1 percent fewer than the year before. Over the course of the year, around 24,210 people also left the state. On balance, despite these two dampening developments, there was still a considerable net migration gain of around 2,434 people throughout the year.
The number of incoming moves from abroad (15,693) declined again in 2025, as it did the previous year (2024: 18,244). Around 81.3 percent, or approximately 12,763 of the immigrants, were people without German citizenship. Among them were 2,071 Ukrainians, 1,786 Syrians, 1,760 Romanians, and 645 Bulgarians.
In return, a total of 12,671 foreign nationals emigrated across the federal border nationwide. This results in a net immigration surplus of approximately 3,022 foreign nationals.
A total of 10,949 people moved to Saarland from the other 12 territorial states as well as the 3 city-states, while 11,537 moved away, resulting in a net loss of 588 people.
Methodological Notes:
Since the reporting year 2025, the so-called cell key method has been applied to all result tables in natural and spatial population movements. This method is a data-altering confidentiality procedure. In the cell key method, slight modifications to the case numbers are made during the generation of results. Some results are assigned a small "overlay value" (for example, +2 or -1). Instead of the original result, the sum of the original result and the "overlay value" is published. The value 0 is excluded from the overlay, so that a non-existent observation is not artificially created.
If data that has been kept confidential using the Cell Key method is presented in a table, the sum of the rows or columns in the table does not always equal the published total number.
More information about the cell key method and statistical confidentiality in general can be found on the Statistics Portal under these explanations [Link to Confidentiality]
High birth deficit and less immigration - fewer people will live in Saarland in 2025
