Inburgering: demographics under Wet inburgering 2021

Data last updated: December 2025. The 2025 figures are provisional: CBS may revise them.

CBS counts everyone who became subject to inburgeringsplicht (civic integration obligation) under Wet inburgering 2021. A cohort groups people by the year they received their notice from DUO (Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs, the Dutch education service) (External site, opens in a new tab). That year can differ from the year you arrived or your integration period started.

Municipalities record a person’s learning route and required exams in the persoonlijk plan inburgering en participatie (PIP, personal integration and participation plan). The system has three learning routes.

Inburgeringsplicht is the legal duty for certain newcomers with a nationality outside the European Union (EU) to learn Dutch and about Dutch society. This category refers to nationality, not the country someone travelled from. Wet inburgering 2021 applies from 1 January 2022, as Rijksoverheid (Dutch central government) explains (External site, opens in a new tab).

CBS divides people into two doelgroepen (target groups). Asielmigranten (asylum migrants) include people who reunited with or formed a family with an asylum migrant. Gezins- & overige migranten (family and other migrants) form the second group.

To check whether the duty applies to you, read who must integrate. For an explanation of the system, read what inburgering is in the Netherlands.

Asylum migrants and their family members outnumbered family and other migrants in the 2022–2025 population. The difference is 38,260 people. The table uses CBS’s Populatie inburgeringsplichtigen (population with an integration obligation) chart. Shares are rounded to whole percentages.

The 2024 cohort was roughly 40% larger than the 2022 cohort. These figures use the same CBS population chart.

Syrian nationals were the largest nationality group among asylum migrants. The table shows the five largest nationalities among asylum migrants across 2022–2025. It uses CBS’s Top-10 meest voorkomende nationaliteiten (10 most common nationalities) chart.

The Syrian group was larger than the other four nationalities shown combined. The difference is 22,295 people. These comparisons describe asylum migrants only.

About 64% were under 35 when their obligation started. Men and women each made up about half. The table combines age bands from CBS’s Totaal migranten naar leeftijd en geslacht bij start inburgeringsplicht.

The largest five-year age band was 25–29. The 35–44 row combines two five-year bands, so its larger count is not a comparison between equal age ranges.

CBS records the highest education level people attended in the Netherlands before their obligation started. About 17,050 people had Dutch schooling on record. Among them, about 41% had attended middelbaar beroepsonderwijs (mbo, secondary vocational education) and about 39% voortgezet onderwijs (secondary school). These figures describe education attended, rather than diplomas completed.

CBS also records internationale diplomawaardering (foreign diploma evaluation): a comparison with Dutch education levels. About 14,600 people had a diploma evaluated. The table describes this group, rather than everyone with an integration obligation.

The table’s school levels include havo (senior general secondary education), vwo (pre-university education), basisonderwijs (primary education) and vmbo (pre-vocational secondary education). IDW (External site, opens in a new tab) explains diploma evaluations. Its description of the Dutch education system (External site, opens in a new tab) explains these levels.

Bachelor’s-level diplomas were more common than havo, vwo and master’s-level diplomas combined. The difference is 2,440 people. The table uses CBS’s Niveau internationale diplomawaardering van migranten (totaal) (foreign diploma levels of migrants, total) chart. The selected evaluation type is Internationale diplomawaardering.

About 62% of this group had a diploma evaluated at bachelor’s level or higher, counting bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and doctorates. This percentage applies only to people who had a diploma evaluated.

A diploma evaluation describes your education level. Employers decide whether to offer you a job. It does not give permission to work in a regulated profession. For your own documents, read foreign diploma recognition in the Netherlands. IDW’s diploma evaluation questions (External site, opens in a new tab) explain this limit.

Source: the CBS Statistiek Wet inburgering (SWI, Civic Integration Act statistics) Statistiek Wet inburgering dashboard (External site, opens in a new tab), 2022–2025 cohorts. We used the CSV (comma-separated values) downloads for population, nationality, age and sex, Dutch education and foreign diploma levels. The Dutch education chart is Hoogstgevolgd onderwijsniveau in Nederland voor start inburgeringsplicht.

For population totals, we used each migration group’s published total across all cohorts. We calculated each share from those totals. Summing separately rounded subgroups can give a slightly different count.

CBS rounds demographic and Dutch education counts to the nearest five. It rounds foreign diploma counts to the nearest ten. Counts under ten are suppressed for privacy. Counts and rounded percentages may therefore add up to a different total.

The age table combines CBS’s five-year bands for ages 35–44 and 45 and over. The diploma table includes unknown levels in the total. Dutch education figures cover only people with Dutch schooling on record.

The figures describe the groups; they do not explain why people have different outcomes. Inburgering.org analyses the figures published by CBS.

CBS publishes these dashboard figures annually (External site, opens in a new tab).

Compare groups with the same counting basis. The population tables count obligation notices, not all arrivals. The diploma table covers only evaluated diplomas, while Dutch schooling means education attended. These figures describe populations; they cannot determine an individual’s integration duty.

• PIP: what to check in your personal integration and participation plan
• How the Netherlands assigns integration learning routes
• Language levels people achieve during integration