Overseas residents bolster Porto’s stagnant population over past decade

Overseas residents in Porto are contributing towards offsetting the aging index in the city that in 2023 had 248,769 inhabitants, +6.1% on 2013, according to the city’s mayor.

“After many years in which Porto lost a lot of its population, we’re seeing that compared to 2013 the population of Porto has increased by over 6%”, Mayor Rui Moreira told the Lusa new agency.

The data is from a document presented during the Municipal Council of Economics held on September 11, which, among other topics, focused on demography based on data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and Eurostat.

In 2023, Porto had 248,769 residents, 6.11% more than in 2013, when it had 234,453 residents. Of the 248,769 residents, 62% were between 14 and 65 years old, 26% 65 or older and 12% up to 14 years old.

“Today, the city of Porto has recovered its population largely because there are migratory flows that are replacing the natural balance of aging,” he said.

Although the data on the foreign population residing in Porto does not correlate with the same period under analysis, it does show that, between 2012 and 2022, there was a growth of 210.8%.

More detailed data also indicates that in 2022 Porto had 23,312 foreign residents, 23.1% more than in 2021, when it had 18,936 immigrants. The population from Mozambique (53.1%), India (42.5%), Angola (32.5%), Brazil (27.3%) and Italy (11.7%) grew the most among the different immigrant nationalities.