Almost 5,000 Portuguese (4,892) went to live in the Netherlands last year, according to data from the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek.

This body recorded 310,013 entries of foreigners into the country, with Portuguese people representing 1.6% of this total.

"After an increase in 2022 (+33.1%), in 2023 Portuguese emigration to the Netherlands grew again (+7.9%), reaching the highest number of entries in the series under analysis", the report states.

The increase in Portuguese emigration to the Netherlands exceeds that recorded in the United Kingdom (4,414 entries in 2023), the historically preferred destination for Portuguese emigration.

Between 2000 and 2023, Portuguese emigration to the Netherlands reached a minimum value in 2005, with 830 entries, and a very sharp increase between that year and 2008.

A slight decrease between 2013 and 2015 was replaced by continuous growth in the following years, with the maximum value of the series being recorded in 2023, with 4,892 entries, the Observatory finally reveals.