Data from the 2021 census show that 84% of the current population lived in Estonia ten years ago as well, the proportion of people who have arrived from abroad has risen significantly, and the overall population of immigrants is increasingly international. For the last ten years, internal migration has been predominantly in the direction of Harju county.

It is estimated that 17% of the native Estonian-speaking population speak a dialect. This is 2 percentage points more than in the previous census. The share of dialect speakers has increased the most in Hiiu and Saare counties, but it has not decreased in any county. 10% of dialect speakers speak more than one dialect.

Census data show that an estimated 76% of Estonia’s population speak a foreign language. While 10 years ago the most widely spoken foreign language in Estonia was Russian, today it is English. Estonian is spoken by 84% of the population: 67% speak it as a mother tongue and 17% as a foreign language.

29% of people in Estonia are estimated to be affiliated with a religion. This figure has remained unchanged over the last three population censuses. However, the proportion of people who do not feel an affiliation to any religion has increased – from 54% in 2011 to 58% in 2021. The most prevalent religion in Estonia is Orthodox Christianity.

Data from the population and housing census conducted at the end of 2021 show that on average in Estonia, people’s homes are older than they are, and the number of households living in private houses has increased.

Data from the register-based population and housing census of 2021 reveal that 72.5% of Estonia’s population is made up of native people, i.e. persons with at least one parent and grandparent born in Estonia. At the time of the previous census, the share of the native populace was 75.3%, which means that the proportion of natives in the population has decreased by 2.8 percentage points, while the share of the foreign-origin population who consider themselves ethnic Estonians has increased.