Poland’s fertility rate fell to 1.068 children per woman in 2025, according to Statistics Poland (GUS), a level just over half of what it was in 1990, when it stood at 1.991. The country’s population fell by 156,000 people over the same year, and GUS itself, in the language of an official statistical release, struck what reporters described as a pessimistic note, stating there is little prospect of reversing the trend given persistently low fertility and continued emigration of young people.
Poland’s Current Population Situation
Poland’s population stood at 37.3 million at the end of 2025, according to GUS, down 0.42 percent, or 156,000 people, from the year before. That decline came in faster than the Central Statistical Office’s own 2023 forecast had anticipated; that projection had expected the population to reach 37.412 million in 2025, meaning actual population fell roughly 100,000 short of even the pessimistic official baseline. Poland’s population has fallen in nearly every year since 2012, when it peaked at 38.53 million, a cumulative loss of well over a million people in thirteen years.
Why Poland’s Population Is Under Pressure
The mechanics of the decline are straightforward: deaths have consistently exceeded births by a wide and worsening margin. Poland recorded 168,000 more deaths than births in the 2025 data, GUS reported, and natural population change stood at negative 4.48 per 1,000 residents for the year. Every one of Poland’s 16 voivodeships (provinces) recorded a natural decrease in 2025; only Lesser Poland Province managed overall population growth, and that amounted to just 0.01 percent, entirely attributable to migration rather than births.
The decline has hit towns harder than rural areas: urban population fell 0.55 percent year on year in 2025, compared with a 0.22 percent decline in rural areas, a divergence GUS analysts link partly to internal migration patterns as well as differing age structures between urban and rural populations.
Poland’s Fertility Challenge
Poland’s total fertility rate has been on a near-uninterrupted downward path for over three decades. From 1.991 children per woman in 1990, the rate fell to 1.330 by 2021 and then dropped sharply to 1.099 in 2024 and 1.068 in 2025, GUS’s lowest recorded figure in the modern history of Polish demographic measurement. This acceleration in the decline caught even Poland’s own statistical agency by surprise: the Polish Economic Institute noted that the primary reason the 2023 population forecast underestimated the speed of decline was precisely this faster-than-expected fertility drop.
Poland’s Fertility Rate, Selected Years
| Year | Total Fertility Rate |
|---|---|
| 1990 | 1.991 |
| 2021 | 1.330 |
| 2024 | 1.099 |
| 2025 | 1.068 |
GUS’s own explanation for the persistence of low fertility points to a compounding structural factor beyond individual family choices: a systematic decline in the number of women of reproductive age, itself a downstream consequence of decades of low birth rates working their way through the population’s age structure, combined with continued high emigration of young people abroad. A range of state incentives, including raised child benefits and renewed public funding for IVF treatment, have not halted the slide, according to GUS’s own assessment.
Aging and the Working Age Population
Poland’s age structure has shifted substantially over just fifteen years. People of working age made up 58.1 percent of the population in 2025, down from 59.4 percent in 2020 and 64.4 percent in 2010. Over the same period, the share of the population above retirement age, defined in Poland as over 60 for women and 65 for men, climbed to 24.2 percent in 2025, up from 22.2 percent in 2020, 16.8 percent in 2010, and just 12.8 percent in 1990. The share of children under 18 fell from 29 percent of the population in 1990 to 17.7 percent in 2025.
Poland’s Age Structure Shift, 1990 to 2025
| Indicator | 1990 | 2010 | 2020 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working age share | — | 64.4% | 59.4% | 58.1% |
| Retirement age share | 12.8% | 16.8% | 22.2% | 24.2% |
| Under-18 share | 29.0% | 18.8% | 18.4% | 17.7% |
Poland’s overall dependency ratio, the number of people not of working age for every 100 working-age people, stood at 72 in 2025, numerically identical to the 1990 figure but structurally very different: in 1990 that ratio was driven mostly by a large youth population, while in 2025 it is driven increasingly by the retirement-age population, a shift with materially different implications for pension and healthcare financing than for school capacity.
Migration Has Changed Poland’s Demographic Picture
Immigration has partly cushioned Poland’s population decline, and the country has recorded some of the highest migration inflows in the European Union in recent years, driven substantially by Ukrainian migration following the 2022 invasion. But Poland’s Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) has cautioned explicitly that it is unrealistic to assume migration alone will be sufficient to counter Poland’s underlying demographic decline.
ZUS estimated in 2023 that, simply to maintain the current ratio of working-age population to retirees, Poland would need to attract almost two million immigrant workers over the following decade, a scale of sustained inflow considerably larger than what the country has managed even during its recent peak migration years.
Regional Population Differences
The 2025 data shows population decline was effectively universal across Poland’s provinces, with the sole exception of Lesser Poland Province, which grew by a statistically negligible 0.01 percent. Urban centers experienced steeper relative losses than rural areas in 2025, though the longer-term structural pattern in Poland has generally featured population concentration around larger cities and regional decline in more peripheral rural and post-industrial areas, a dynamic consistent with patterns seen elsewhere in Central Europe.
Poland’s Population Projections
Long-range projections for Poland vary considerably depending on the fertility assumptions used, and the range itself illustrates how sensitive Poland’s demographic future is to a variable that has consistently surprised forecasters to the downside. GUS’s official 2023 medium-scenario projection anticipated Poland’s population falling from 37.6 million at the end of 2023 to 30.9 million by 2060, a decline of 17.6 percent.
But GUS’s own November 2025 experimental simulation, using a lower fertility assumption of 1.1 that more closely matches the fertility rate Poland is actually recording, produced a considerably steeper trajectory: 28.4 million by 2060, a decline of 24.3 percent from 2024 levels. GUS emphasized this experimental simulation is not an official forecast and should not be used as a basis for policy decisions, but presented it explicitly to illustrate how far off the official medium scenario may already be running.
A separate Eurostat forecast published in 2026 projected an even steeper long-run decline, predicting Poland’s population, then around 37.5 million, would fall to 25.6 million by 2100, a decline of 32 percent, and nearly four million lower than Eurostat’s own forecast published just three years earlier. Some GUS-linked estimates that account for lower birth rates put the 2060 population as low as 26.7 million, a 27 percent decline from current levels.
Poland’s Population Projections by Source and Scenario
| Source | Target Year | Projected Population | Implied Decline |
|---|---|---|---|
| GUS official (2023 medium scenario) | 2060 | 30.9 million | −17.6% |
| GUS experimental (low fertility, Nov 2025) | 2060 | 28.4 million | −24.3% (vs. 2024) |
| GUS-linked low estimate | 2060 | 26.7–29.4 million | −22 to −27% |
| Eurostat (April 2026) | 2100 | 25.6 million | −32% |
What Demographic Change Means for Poland
A shrinking, aging population with a rising dependency ratio driven increasingly by retirees rather than children carries direct implications for Poland’s pension system, healthcare capacity, and labor market. ZUS’s own estimate that Poland would need nearly two million additional immigrant workers over a decade just to hold the working-age-to-retiree ratio steady illustrates the scale of the challenge policymakers face, a scale that current migration levels, while historically high for Poland, have not come close to matching on a sustained basis.
Conclusion
Poland’s 2025 demographic data confirms a trend that has outpaced even the country’s own official forecasts for three consecutive revision cycles: fertility keeps falling faster than projected, and each new projection has had to be revised toward a steeper decline than the one before it. The government’s own statistical agency has been unusually direct in stating there is little prospect of reversal, a rare instance of an official body explicitly declining to project optimism into its own demographic outlook.
Key Findings
- Poland’s population fell by 156,000 people in 2025 to 37.3 million, with 168,000 more deaths than births recorded nationally.
- Poland’s fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.068 children per woman in 2025, down from 1.099 in 2024 and just over half the 1.991 level recorded in 1990.
- Every Polish province recorded a natural population decrease in 2025; only Lesser Poland Province grew overall, by a negligible 0.01 percent, driven by migration.
- The working-age population share fell from 64.4 percent in 2010 to 58.1 percent in 2025, while the retirement-age share rose from 16.8 percent to 24.2 percent over the same period.
- Long-range projections vary from a 17.6 percent decline by 2060 under GUS’s official scenario to a 32 percent decline by 2100 under Eurostat’s 2026 forecast, with GUS’s own experimental low-fertility simulation pointing toward the steeper end of that range.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is Poland’s population declining?
Yes. Poland’s population fell by 156,000 people in 2025 to 37.3 million, continuing a decline that has occurred in nearly every year since the country’s population peaked at 38.53 million in 2012.
2. Why is Poland’s fertility rate so low?
GUS points to a persistently low fertility rate over roughly three decades, a shrinking pool of women of reproductive age as a downstream effect of that trend, and continued high emigration of young Poles abroad, without attributing the decline to a single dominant cause.
3. Will immigration reverse Poland’s population decline?
Immigration has cushioned but not reversed the decline; Poland’s own Social Insurance Institution has called it unrealistic to expect migration alone to offset the country’s underlying demographic trends at anywhere near the scale required.
4. What is Poland’s current fertility rate?
Poland’s fertility rate stood at 1.068 children per woman in 2025, according to GUS, a record low and less than half the replacement level of 2.1.
5. How much is Poland’s population projected to decline?
Projections range from a 17.6 percent decline by 2060 under GUS’s official medium scenario to a 32 percent decline by 2100 under an April 2026 Eurostat forecast, with GUS’s own experimental low-fertility scenario pointing toward a steeper decline than its official projection.
6. What is Poland’s dependency ratio?
Poland’s overall dependency ratio stood at 72 people not of working age for every 100 working-age people in 2025, numerically similar to 1990 but now driven increasingly by retirees rather than children.
7. How has Poland’s age structure changed?
The working-age share of Poland’s population fell from 64.4 percent in 2010 to 58.1 percent in 2025, while the retirement-age share rose from 16.8 percent to 24.2 percent over the same period.
8. Have Polish government incentives helped raise the birth rate?
No. GUS’s own assessment states that a range of incentives, including raised child benefits and renewed IVF funding, have failed to halt Poland’s demographic decline.
9. Which parts of Poland are most affected by population decline?
Nearly all of Poland’s 16 provinces recorded natural population decrease in 2025; urban areas saw steeper declines (−0.55%) than rural areas (−0.22%), and only Lesser Poland Province grew overall, and only marginally.
10. How many immigrants would Poland need to offset its demographic decline?
Poland’s Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) estimated in 2023 that the country would need almost two million immigrant workers over the following decade just to maintain its current ratio of working-age population to retirees.
Sources
- Statistics Poland (GUS), demographic data release for 2025, and experimental population simulation, November 2025
- Notes From Poland, “Poland’s fertility rate fell to new low in 2025,” May 2026
- Notes From Poland, “Poland’s population decline accelerated in 2025, with 168,000 more deaths than births,” February 2026
- Notes From Poland, “Poland records EU’s largest population decline for second year running,” July 2025
- Polish Economic Institute, Economic Weekly 19/2026, May 15, 2026
- Eurostat, population forecast, April 2026
- Wikipedia, “Demographics of Poland,” citing GUS data
