Demographics of Vilnius

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an influx of Ukrainian refugees to Lithuania, who were granted a refugee status^[1] the number of inhabitants of Vilnius rose to 643,513 as of April 2026 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The number of inhabitants of Vilnius, born in Ukraine rose from 10 thousand to 29 thousand between 2021 and 2023. The number of persons born in Belarus rose from 25 thousand to 37 thousand during the same period mostly as a consequence of 2020–2021 Belarusian protests and intensified fleeing abroad of its citizens. Also, numbers of persons, who settle in Vilnius, coming from Central Asia, Caucasus, African, Asian (most notably - India) countries are on the rise.^[2]

In 2023-2024 a surge of migrants from Central Asia and India was observed. The number of economic migrants in Lithuania from Uzbekistan rose from 1.8 thousand to almost 10 thousand, from Kyrgyzstan – from less than 2 thousand to more than 6.6 thousand, from Tajikistan – from 1.4 thousand to 6.3 thousand, from India – from 1.2 thousand to 5.2 thousand. Most of these migrants settled in Vilnius.^[3]

As of late 2023, 73 thousand foreigners lived in Vilnius, up from 38 thousand a year and a half earlier. In January 2022, there were also 5 000 foreign minors living in Vilnius, but the number had risen to 13 000 in January 2023.^[4]

Before these dramatic changes, what led to the sharp rise of the number of inhabitants, the city of Vilnius as of early 2021 had a population between 569,729^[5][6] (according to Statistics Lithuania) and 588,412^[7] (according to the State Enterprise Centre of Registers). According to the municipality of Vilnius, the city had a population of 597,610^[2] as of May 2022 – the figure includes Grigiškės, a formally separate town within the municipality of the capital, but without a separate body of a town government except that of a Vilnius city district (seniūnija). The actual number of city inhabitants could be higher as according to the Vilnius territorial health insurance fund, there were 732,815 permanent inhabitants as of January 2021 in Vilnius city and Vilnius district municipalities combined^{[8][note 1]}.

According to the predictions, made by the municipality specialists of the city planning department of Vilnius, the number of inhabitants of Vilnius in 2030 could be between 630,3 thousand (pessimistic scenario) and 685 thousand (optimistic scenario) with the basic scenario of 651,6 thousand inhabitants within the city borders.^[10]

Demographic evolution of Vilnius between 1766 and 2026:

More information Year, Lithuanians ...

Year	Lithuanians		Poles		Russians		Jews		Others		Total
1897[20]*	3,131	2%	47,795	31%	30,967	20%	61,847	40%	10,792	7%	154,532
1916[21]*	3,669	2.6%	70,629	50.1%	2,080	1.5%	61,265	43.5%	3,217	2.3%	140,840
1917[22]*	2,909	2.1%	74,466	53.65%	2,212	1.6%	57,516	41.44%	1,872	0.77%	138,787
1919[21]*	2,900	2.3%	72,067	56.1%	4,049	3.2%	46,506	36.2%	2,954	2.3%	128,476
1923[21]*	1,445	0.9%	100,830	60.2%	4,669	2.8%	56,168	33.5%	4,342	2.6%	167,454
1931[23]*	1,579	0.8%	128,628	65.9%	7,372	3.8%	54,596	28%	1,159	0.6%	195,071
1941[24]	52,370	28.1%	94,511	50.7%	6.712	3.6%	30,179	16.2%	2,541	1.4%	186,313
1942[21]	29,480	20.5%	103,203	71.9%	6,012	2%	N/A		1,220	0.4%	143,498
1951[21]	55,300	30.8%	37,700	21%	59,700	33.3%	5,500	3.1%	21,100	11.8%	179,300
1959[25]	79,363	33.6%	47,226	20%	69,416	29.4%	16,354	6.9%	23,719	10%	236,078
1970[21]	159,156	42.8%	68,261	18.6%	91,004	24.5%	16,491	4.4%	37,188	10%	372,100
1979[21]	225,137	47.3%	85,562	18%	105,618	22.2%	10,723	2.3%	48,785	10.3%	475,825
1989[21]	291,527	50.5%	108,239	18.8%	116,618	20.2%	9,109	1.6%	51,524	8.9%	576,747
2001[26]	318,510	57.5%	104,446	18.9%	77,698	14.1%	2,770	0.5%	50,480	9.1%	553,904
2011[27]	337,000	63.2%	88,380	16.5%	64,275	12%	2,026	0.4%	45,976	8.6%	535,631
2021[28]	373,511	67.1%	85,438	15.4%	53,886	9.7%	N/A		43,655	7.8%	556,490

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• Demographic history of the Vilnius region