Germany's total fertility rate fell to 1.32 children per woman in 2025, down 2.7 per cent on the previous year's figure of 1.35, according to final data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). The rate has now declined continuously since 2022. The last comparable level was recorded in 2006 at 1.33, while the all-time low of 1.24 was reached in the mid-1990s.
The generation born during that earlier trough now forms the relatively small pool of potential parents today, compounding the current decline. The total number of births in 2025 came to 654,241, the lowest recorded in Germany since the post-war era.
The decline cuts across all groups. The fertility rate among women with German citizenship fell 2.8 per cent to 1.20 in 2025, its lowest in nearly 30 years, last seen in 1996 at 1.22. Among women of foreign nationality, the rate dropped 3.3 per cent to 1.78, from 1.84 the previous year. Fertility among foreign women has been falling continuously since 2017, with the exception of 2021.
Fertility rates across Germany's federal states ranged from 1.16 in Saxony to 1.38 in Lower Saxony in 2025. Saxony's figure is its lowest since 1998, when it stood at 1.11. Lower Saxony has held the top position since 2018, though its rate dipped below 1.40 for the first time in 16 years, it last recorded 1.38 in 2009.
Eastern states averaged 1.22 children per woman compared to 1.34 in the west, with Brandenburg posting the highest eastern rate at 1.30. Every federal state recorded a year-on-year decline except Hamburg, which edged up 0.4 per cent to 1.24. The steepest fall was in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, down 6.3 per cent to 1.21.
Women born in 1976, who reached the end of the statistical childbearing age of 49 in 2025, had an average of 1.58 children. Among women born in the 1960s, completed fertility had declined steadily, hitting a historical low of 1.49 for the 1968 cohort. Women born from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s are having children later in life but at a slightly higher rate of around 1.6.
Should the downward trend that began in 2022 continue, women born in the 1980s and 1990s will have fewer number of children.
In 2025, mothers were on average 31.9 years old at the time of birth and fathers 34.8, each rising by 0.1 years on 2024. Since 1991, the average age of mothers at birth has increased by four years, from 27.9, and fathers' by 3.8 years, from 31.0. The age gap between parents at first birth has narrowed from 3.2 years in 2015 to 2.8 years in 2025. Mothers averaged 30.5 years at first birth; fathers averaged 33.3.
Germany recorded 2,857 stillbirths in 2025, slightly fewer than the 2,900 in 2024. The stillbirth rate, per 1,000 live and stillbirths combined, remained at 4.3, unchanged since 2021 apart from 2022, when it stood at 4.4. The rate was higher among foreign women at 4.9 than among German women at 4.1. Mothers at stillbirth were on average 32.4 years old, half a year older than at a live birth.
Based on the latest Eurostat data for 2024, the EU average fertility rate stood at 1.34 children per woman, placing Germany, at 1.35 that year, in the middle of the European field. Bulgaria recorded the highest rate in the EU at 1.72, while Malta had the lowest at 1.01. Between 2019 and 2024, the fertility rate fell by 12 per cent both across the EU as a whole and in Germany specifically.
The sharpest declines were recorded in Estonia, down 29 per cent, and in Poland and Romania, each down 21 per cent. Sweden also fell by an above-average 16 per cent.
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