As Estonia's natural population growth has remained negative for a long time, it is the positive migration balance that helps to keep the country's population numbers stable, analysts Terje Trasberg and Kristjan Erik Loik wrote in a blog post (link in Estonian). Estonia's migration balance has been positive since 2015.
Last year, nearly 3,800 more people moved to Estonia than left the country. Compared to 2019, the number of immigrants decreased by nearly 2,000 and the number of emigrants by just under 400. The lower numbers of both immigrants and emigrants mainly were a result of the restrictions related to coronavirus.
The quality of the migration statistics of Statistics Estonia depends largely on whether or not a change of country of residence is recorded. The methodology used also allows for the identification of unregistered migration, but in such cases the information on both the country of origin and the country of destination is incomplete. Although the quality of the register data for identifying countries of origin has improved over the years, Statistics Estonia's analysis looked at the country of birth of migrants.
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