On 1 January 2017, the population of the European Union (EU) was estimated at 511.8m, compared with 510.3m on 1 January 2016, according to Eurostat.

During last year as many births as deaths were recorded in the EU (5.1m), meaning that the natural change of the EU population was neutral. The population change (positive, with 1.5m more inhabitants) was therefore due to net migration. With 82.8m residents (or 16.2% of the total EU population at 1 January 2017), Germany is the most populated EU Member State, ahead of France (67.0m, or 13.1%), the UK (65.8m, or 12.9%), Italy (60.6m, or 11.8%), Spain (46.5m, or 9.1%) and Poland (38.0m, or 7.4%), meaning that more than 70% of the EU population live in those six countries.

During 2016, the population increased in eighteen EU Member States and decreased in ten. The largest relative increase was observed in Luxembourg (1.98%), ahead of Sweden (1.45%). In contrast, the largest decrease was recorded in Lithuania (-1.42%), followed by Latvia (-0.96%).