A new report by the Maldives Bureau of Statistics (MBS) projects a significant demographic shift, forecasting that two out of every five people in the island nation will be foreigners by the year 2026.
With the foreign population expected to surge from 132,493 in 2023 to 263,345 in 2026, the country’s total population is predicted to reach 678,024—marking a rapid increase largely driven by expatriate labour.
The data highlights a growing reliance on foreign workers, particularly in the working-age bracket, where foreigners already outnumber Maldivian males between ages 25 and 29 by 17,000—a gap projected to widen to 40,000 by 2026.
Meanwhile, declining birth rates among Maldivian women, expected to drop to 1.5 children per woman, will shrink the child population from 22 percent to 11 percent, while the elderly population is set to rise sharply from 4 percent to 18 percent.