Oman Population Statistics 2026 | Age Group, Growth, Density & Key Facts

Oman’s Population in 2026

Oman’s population stood at 5,388,513 residents as of the end of May 2026, according to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the Sultanate’s official government statistics authority — a figure up 1.6% year-on-year from roughly 5.3 million a year earlier. That official count sits notably below the 5.67 to 5.7 million estimate published by United Nations-based trackers like Worldometer for the same year, a gap that reflects genuine methodological differences rather than conflicting facts: NCSI’s figure is drawn directly from Royal Oman Police residency and civil registration records, while UN-based projections rely on broader demographic modeling that can diverge from real-time administrative counts, particularly for a country like Oman with a large, fluctuating expatriate population.

Oman’s demographic profile remains defined by two consistent characteristics: a genuinely young population, with a median age hovering around 29.7 to 30.8 years depending on the source, and one of the most pronounced male-skewed gender ratios of any country in the world, driven almost entirely by labor migration into the construction, logistics, and services sectors. This report compiles the most current, verified statistics on Oman’s population size, growth, age structure, nationality composition, and governorate-level breakdown, drawing primarily on NCSI’s official 2025 and 2026 data releases, cross-referenced against United Nations World Population Prospects estimates.

Interesting Facts About Oman’s Population in 2026

Source: Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI); Oman Observer, May 2026; Worldometer/UN World Population Prospects 2024 Revision

The 44% expatriate share of Oman’s population is the single statistic that most explains the country’s demographic profile relative to its Gulf neighbors and the wider world — it means nearly half of everyone living in Oman is a foreign national, present primarily for employment rather than permanent settlement. That share has grown enormously since Oman’s early 1990s baseline, when expatriates made up under 27% of the population, reflecting the country’s decades-long economic diversification and infrastructure buildout, which has consistently drawn migrant labor from South Asia and elsewhere at a pace far exceeding natural population growth among Omani citizens alone.

The gap between Omani and expatriate fertility rates — 2.8 children per Omani woman against just 0.7 for expatriate women — captures a defining structural feature of Gulf demographic patterns more broadly: expatriate populations in Oman skew heavily toward working-age adults, often men, who arrive without their families or arrive on short-term contracts that don’t typically include raising children in-country. This fertility gap, combined with Oman’s own gender-imbalanced overall population, produces a demographic structure that looks meaningfully different from almost any country outside the Gulf Cooperation Council region.

Oman Population Size and Growth Statistics 2026

Source: Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI); Oman Observer; Worldometer; PopulationOf.net

The most authoritative figure available for Oman’s population — 5,388,513, published directly by NCSI as of the end of May 2026 — sits meaningfully below the 5.67-to-5.71-million range cited by international demographic trackers relying on United Nations World Population Prospects modeling. For demographic analysis, government planning, and business research specific to Oman, NCSI data is generally considered the more reliable and current benchmark, since it draws on actual residency and civil registration records maintained by the Royal Oman Police rather than statistical projection. International platforms, by contrast, often extrapolate from historical growth trends and can lag or overshoot real-time changes in Oman’s highly mobile expatriate population, which can expand or contract relatively quickly in response to labor market conditions, visa policy changes, and the pace of infrastructure projects.

Both data sources agree on the underlying direction, however: Oman’s population continues to grow steadily, adding roughly 90,000 to 100,000 people annually in recent years, a pace the NCSI’s own May 2025 release specifically confirmed at 91,500 additional residents over the prior twelve months. That growth reflects a combination of natural increase among the Omani population — where birth rates still comfortably exceed death rates — and continued, if moderating, net inward migration tied to Oman’s ongoing Vision 2040 economic diversification program.

Oman Population by Nationality Statistics 2026

Source: Wikipedia (Demographics of Oman), citing NCSI historical census and estimate data

The trajectory captured in this table shows one of the most dramatic demographic shifts of any Gulf state over a single generation: expatriates made up just over a quarter of Oman’s population in 1993, climbed to nearly 46% by 2016 at the height of a major infrastructure and construction boom, before easing back toward roughly 40% by 2020 as Oman’s “Omanisation” labor policy — a deliberate government push to prioritize citizen employment in both public and private sectors — began taking hold. The 2014-to-2016 period in particular marked the peak of expatriate population share, coinciding with major LNG, port, and tourism infrastructure investment that drew hundreds of thousands of migrant workers into the country in a remarkably short window.

Gender patterns diverge sharply between the two population groups, reinforcing that this is overwhelmingly a labor-driven migration pattern rather than family settlement: among Omani citizens, the gender ratio remains close to balanced at 101 males per 100 females, while among expatriates, the ratio stood at 284 males for every 100 females as of NCSI’s most recent 2025 breakdown — a ratio reflecting the heavy concentration of foreign male workers in construction, logistics, and services roles, sectors that have historically employed far more men than women across the Gulf region.

Oman Age Structure and Dependency Statistics 2026

Source: Countrymeters; Worldometer; Wikipedia (Demographics of Oman); Oman Observer, May 2026

Oman’s total dependency ratio of 52.2% — meaning the combined child and elderly population equals just over half the size of the working-age population — signals a demographic structure still weighted toward supporting a large young population rather than an aging one, since the 0-to-14 age group at roughly 26.5% dwarfs the 65-and-over group at just 2.6%. That imbalance places Oman firmly among countries with a genuine “youth bulge,” a pattern shared across much of the Gulf and one that carries direct implications for future labor force growth, education infrastructure investment, and long-term Omanisation planning as this large cohort of young Omanis reaches working age over the coming decade.

The prime working-age population aged 25 to 54, accounting for roughly 55.3% of Oman’s total population — nearly 3 million people — reflects the country’s heavily workforce-driven demographic structure, a composition shaped substantially by the expatriate labor population concentrated almost entirely within this age band. Encouragingly, Oman’s health indicators for its citizen population have continued improving steadily: the infant mortality rate fell to 7.4 per 1,000 live births in 2025, down from higher levels in prior years, while the crude death rate eased to 2.4 per 1,000 people, both figures reflecting sustained investment in maternal and public healthcare infrastructure.

Oman Population Density and Urbanization Statistics 2026

Source: Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI); Worldometer; Oman Observer, May 2026

Oman’s overall population density of 17.3 people per square kilometer — among the lowest in the Middle East — masks an extremely uneven distribution shaped by the country’s mountainous, largely desert terrain, which concentrates the vast majority of residents along a narrow coastal strip and around a handful of urban centers. Muscat Governorate, the capital region, records a density of 383.1 people per square kilometer, more than 22 times the national average, cementing its role as Oman’s dominant economic and administrative hub even as most of the country’s interior and southern desert regions remain very sparsely populated.

The wilayat of Bausher, within greater Muscat, stands out for a different reason: expatriates make up 78.1% of its population, the highest concentration recorded anywhere in the Sultanate, reflecting the district’s role as a major hub for foreign worker housing tied to nearby commercial and industrial employment. This kind of hyper-localized expatriate concentration is common across Gulf capital regions and illustrates how national-level statistics on nationality composition can obscure significant variation at the district level — a pattern also visible just across the Strait of Hormuz, where similar dynamics shape population distribution on the Iranian side of the waterway, detailed further in the Strait of Hormuz Statistics report.

Oman Governorate Population Statistics 2026

Source: Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), Monthly Statistical Bulletin, May 2026

Oman’s eleven governorates show enormous variation in population, ranging from Muscat’s 1.54 million residents — well over a quarter of the entire country’s population — down to the remote, mountainous Musandam Governorate, home to just 55,802 people and separated from mainland Oman entirely by a strip of UAE territory. That geographic isolation, combined with Musandam’s rugged, fjord-cut terrain, makes it both the smallest Omani governorate by population and by land area, a detailed profile covered further in the Musandam Statistics report, which documents the governorate’s unique status as an exclave positioned directly on the Strait of Hormuz opposite Iran.

The concentration of population along Oman’s northern Batinah coast — where North and South Al Batinah combined account for more than 28% of the national population, nearly matching Muscat’s own share — reflects the historical and continued economic importance of this fertile coastal strip, long the country’s agricultural heartland and now home to significant industrial and port development. By contrast, the vast desert governorate of Al Wusta, despite covering a substantial share of Oman’s total land area, holds barely 1.2% of the national population, underscoring just how much of the Sultanate’s interior remains functionally uninhabited outside a handful of oil and gas installations.

Oman Life Expectancy and Health Statistics 2026

Source: Oman National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI); Oman Observer, May 2026; Worldometer

Oman’s life expectancy of 77.5 years among its citizen population as of 2025 reflects continued steady health system improvements, though it still trails the higher figures — approaching 80 to 85 years depending on gender and methodology — reported by broader UN-based population trackers that model life expectancy across the entire resident population, including a younger, healthier expatriate workforce that tends to skew overall averages upward. The gap between male and female life expectancy, with women living roughly 3 to 4 years longer than men on average, follows the same pattern observed globally and across the wider Gulf region.

The modest decline in Oman’s crude birth rate, from 21.2 per 1,000 Omanis in 2024 to 20.8 in 2025, tracks a broader regional trend of gradually moderating fertility even as the country’s total fertility rate among Omani women, at roughly 2.8 children per woman, remains comfortably above the replacement level of 2.1 — meaning Oman’s citizen population continues to grow through natural increase even independent of any migration-driven growth, a demographic advantage increasingly rare among middle- and high-income nations and one that continues to distinguish Oman from population trajectories seen elsewhere in the Middle East, including neighboring Israel, whose own demographic story is explored in detail in the Israel Population Statistics report.

Oman Religion and Ethnicity Statistics

Source: CIA World Factbook (2020 est., 2022 Archive); Worldpopulationreview.com

Oman’s religious composition sets it apart even within the Gulf region: while overwhelmingly Muslim at 85.9% nationally, Omani citizens themselves are distinguished by a roughly even split between the Ibadhi and Sunni branches of Islam, each accounting for close to 45% of the citizen population, with a smaller Shia minority — a religious balance genuinely unique among Arab states, where Ibadhi Islam holds only minor global presence outside Oman. The 6.4% Christian and 5.7% Hindu shares reflect Oman’s large South Asian expatriate population specifically, since these faiths are overwhelmingly practiced by foreign workers rather than Omani citizens.

This religious diversity, driven almost entirely by the expatriate population documented throughout this article, reinforces a consistent theme across Oman’s 2026 demographic profile: nearly every statistic that distinguishes the country’s population structure — from its gender ratio to its fertility rates to its religious composition — ultimately traces back to the fundamental split between a comparatively small, demographically stable Omani citizen population and a large, economically essential, but highly transient expatriate workforce that continues to shape the Sultanate’s growth trajectory as it pursues its long-term Vision 2040 economic diversification goals.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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