28.6 million people, after millions left

Venezuela is home to about 28.6 million people in 2026, the fifth-largest population in South America and about 54th in the world¹. That is fewer than it had a decade ago. By the UN’s count the population peaked at 30.8 million in 2017, then fell by more than 2.6 million in five years, bottoming out at 28.2 million at the start of 2022¹.

The UN’s medium projection has it growing again from here, to 31.1 million by 2050, and peaking at about 31.2 million in 2057¹. Venezuela’s own statistics office, INE, puts the population far higher, at about 34.1 million in mid-2024, roughly 20% above the UN’s estimate for the same date²¹. The gap largely comes down to how many people have left.

Nearly 8 million Venezuelans now live abroad

The fall had nothing to do with births. It was people leaving. As the economy collapsed, Venezuelans crossed into neighbouring countries in enormous numbers, and in 2017 alone net migration took a staggering 817,000 people out of the country¹.

By November 2025, about 7.9 million Venezuelans were living abroad². That is equal to more than a quarter of everyone still living in Venezuela.

The flow has slowed but not reversed. The UN still has more people leaving than arriving in 2026, by about 93,000¹. A government programme to bring emigrants home, Gran Misión Vuelta a la Patria, brought back about 20,200 people between February 2025 and February 2026², a small fraction of those who left.

Why the population is growing again

If people are still leaving, why does the UN expect growth? Because Venezuela is young. The median age is about 29.5, and women have about 2.04 children on average, close to the 2.1 that keeps a population steady¹. With so many people in their twenties and thirties, births comfortably outnumber deaths, enough to outweigh the people still leaving.

That growth is modest, though, and it rests on two assumptions: that emigration keeps slowing, and that fertility stays near two children. If either breaks, the 2050 figure could come in well below 31 million.

A fifth of the world’s proven oil

Venezuela sits on more proven oil than any other country. At the end of 2024 it held 303 billion barrels of proven crude, about 19.4% of the world total³. That is the oil known to be in the ground, not what is being pumped.

An oil industry that leaks methane

Where the oil is produced, it is produced dirtily. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that methane leaking from Venezuela’s oil and gas operations is about six times the global average per unit produced, and gas flaring about ten times⁴. Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps far more heat than carbon dioxide over its first couple of decades in the air.

In 2024 Venezuela’s oil and gas sector produced about 45% of all fossil-fuel methane from Central and South America⁴. That makes one country’s ageing oil infrastructure a big part of the region’s contribution to global methane emissions, and there is no verified sign yet of it improving.

A modest footprint at home

The average Venezuelan’s own footprint is much smaller than the oil industry’s. If everyone in the world lived like the average person in Venezuela, humanity would need 1.33 Earths⁵. Carbon from fossil fuels is the largest slice, 0.60 Earths, followed by grazing land at 0.40⁵.

At home, the country still has more than it uses. Its ecosystems renew about 2.92 global hectares per person, while each Venezuelan uses 2.00, which makes Venezuela an ecological creditor⁵. The methane problem doesn’t show up in that figure, because it comes from what the industry emits while producing oil for export.

Where Venezuela is heading

On the UN’s projection, Venezuela slowly regains the people it lost and passes its 2017 peak in the 2040s, reaching 31.1 million by 2050. That depends heavily on the exodus continuing to wind down. If more of the 7.9 million abroad come home, the population could grow faster than the UN expects. If departures pick up again, it will grow more slowly.

What happens to the oil fields may matter more for the climate than how many people live above them. Fixing the leaks and flares would cut methane quickly, whatever the population does.