Bosnia: 5,964 More Deaths Than Births in Six Months
Bosnia's statistics agency: 11,604 children were born and 17,568 people died in the first half of 2026, continuing a decades long decline in natural population growth.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s demographic picture worsened further in the first half of 2026, according to fresh data from the country’s Agency for Statistics, a trend that matters for Belgrade too, since Serbs across the region face the same pattern of falling birth rates and outward migration that has shaped the whole Western Balkans for decades. The published figures show 11,604 children were born in Bosnia in the first six months of the year, while 17,568 people died, meaning the country lost 5,964 more residents than it gained through birth in just half a year.
The number of births was still higher than in the same period last year, when 10,831 children were born in Bosnia, a rise of 7.14 percent. At the same time, deaths fell by 3.27 percent compared with the first half of 2025, when the Agency for Statistics recorded 18,162 deaths. Despite this modest improvement on both sides of the ledger, the gap between births and deaths remains deeply negative and extends a streak that has continued uninterrupted for more than a decade.
The statistics also track marital status. In the first half of 2026, Bosnia registered 5,921 marriages, down 3.39 percent from a year earlier, while 849 divorces were recorded, a drop of 15.86 percent compared with the same period in 2025. The decline in both marriages and divorces suggests the overall number of marital events in the country is shrinking, rather than simply a shift in the ratio between weddings and divorces.
Demographer Aleksandar Majic told the Banja Luka daily Nezavisne novine that the trend toward negative natural population growth in Bosnia could already be seen back in the 1980s, when the country began losing part of its population of childbearing age. In his assessment, the process has since been compounded by increasingly heavy emigration of young, working age people, while the number of births kept falling year after year, meaning the latest figures from the Agency for Statistics simply continue a pattern that has now lasted more than four decades.
Population trends in Bosnia mirror those in Serbia and elsewhere in the region, where national statistics offices have for years recorded more deaths than births, with the emigration of young people further accelerating the aging of the population. The pace differs: Serbia publishes its natural population data through the Republic Statistical Office, while in Bosnia that role belongs to the joint, state level Agency for Statistics, whose report for the first half of 2026 confirms that the demographic decline in the neighboring country is not slowing down, despite the modest rise in births compared with last year.
