Germany is seeing a growing exodus of its own citizens, with new figures from DeStatis showing that more than 93,000 Germans left the country in the first four months of 2025 alone.
That compares with 80,105 departures over the same period in 2024 and 83,109 in 2023, marking a clear year-on-year increase.
The trend highlights how net losses of German nationals are accelerating. Since 2005, more Germans have left than returned each year, and 2025 is on track to set a new record. By contrast, mass immigration from abroad continues at high levels, producing an overall positive migration balance but leaving native Germans a steadily shrinking share of the population.
DeStatis recorded 427,246 non-German arrivals into the country from January to April this year, with net migration of non-Germans for the first third of the year reaching 126,526.
Between May 2022 and April 2025, a total of 2,089,025 more non-Germans have moved to Germany than have left the country, while 262,476 more German nationals have left the country than have returned.
As Handelsblatt recently noted, those leaving are often not retirees or students, but people in their prime working years. Federal statistics show that around half of emigrants are between 25 and 49 — the very cohort most needed in the domestic labor market. Academics, entrepreneurs, and skilled workers are disproportionately represented.
Behind the numbers are personal stories that illustrate the pressures driving the trend. Julia and Philipp Ramjoué, a young couple from Augsburg, sold their house this year and moved in with their daughter, grandmother, and cats to Arusha, Tanzania. “We felt more at home than we’d ever felt in Germany,” Julia told the German broadsheet, explaining that suffocating bureaucracy and pandemic restrictions had pushed them to seek a new life abroad. Her husband Philipp described the German system as “extremely daunting” for anyone trying to innovate.
Emigration consultants say the pandemic was a turning point. Christoph Heuermann of Staatenlos, who helps Germans relocate, said demand has risen sharply since 2020. Manny Schoenhuber, a lawyer in Houston, noted that nearly one in five of his clients are Germans seeking to settle permanently in the U.S. — often investors, freelancers, or consultants in search of lower taxes and greater freedom.
Officially, more than 270,000 Germans emigrated in 2024, compared with around 141,000 in 2010. The figures do not break down motives, but analysts point to recurring themes: frustration with red tape, high tax burdens, concern about political shifts, and a broader desire for personal freedom.
At the same time, foreign arrivals remain strong. Net immigration has been positive for 15 years, but this balance rests overwhelmingly on non-Germans. Migration statistics show tens of thousands of foreign nationals arriving each month, offsetting the steady outflow of German citizens.
The combined effect amounts to a demographic shift: Germany is growing more reliant on immigration to sustain its population, even as increasing numbers of its own citizens — often highly educated and skilled — seek new lives abroad.
The post Mass Exodus of Natives From Germany but Sky-High Immigration Keeps Population Rising appeared first on American Renaissance.
American Renaissance
