Latvia backs 71-measure immigration restriction plan as population keeps shrinking

Latvia’s government has approved a 71-measure plan aimed at tightening immigration controls, including future quotas for third-country nationals, restrictions on foreign students and changes affecting foreign workers and residence permits.

One of the main measures is to establish annual quotas for third-country nationals by the first quarter of 2027. The plan also envisages limits on the share of foreign students at universities, tighter controls on recruitment and employment, restrictions on self-employment, the closure of residence-permit schemes linked to investment and additional requirements for third-country drivers employed by transport and logistics companies. Platform companies could also be required to provide information on foreigners’ actual working hours. Most of the measures will still require amendments to legislation before they take effect.

The government presents the package primarily as a measure to strengthen control over the entry, residence and employment of third-country nationals and reduce abuse of the immigration system. Business organisations have meanwhile called for the economic consequences of individual measures to be assessed before they are incorporated into law.

But Latvia is making the decision against a much broader demographic background.

The country had 1.845 million inhabitants at the beginning of 2026, 15,500 fewer than a year earlier. Natural population decline accounted for 14,200 of that fall, while net migration was also negative by around 1,300 people. Latvia recorded 11,931 births and 26,109 deaths in 2025. The working-age population accounted for 62.8% of residents, down 0.2 percentage points in a year, while the share aged 65 and over rose to 22.4%.

The contraction is increasingly visible in public infrastructure. The number of children under 18 fell by another 9,200, or 2.7%, in a single year, while enrolment in pre-school education declined by 4.5%. Latvia is also reorganising its hospital network; the Health Ministry itself has cited demographic trends and shortages of medical personnel among the pressures requiring a different model for regional healthcare.

This makes the immigration package more than a labour-market story. Latvia is simultaneously tightening one potential source of population and workforce inflow while adapting schools, healthcare and other public services to a smaller and older population.

The measures do not in themselves determine Latvia’s demographic future, and immigration is not a simple substitute for higher birth rates or other demographic policies. But the two trends now have to be considered together: how will Latvia organise its economy and public services if population decline continues while immigration becomes more restricted?