The heads of the CIS member states adopted the Decision to Conduct Population Censuses Round in the CIS Member States in 2030. The document was signed on October 9, 2026 at the CIS Summit in Turkmenistan.
The Decision notes that the next population censuses in the member states are to be conducted at dates as close to 2030 as possible.
The CIS member states governments were tasked with taking measures to support the World Population and Housing Census Programme.
The CIS Council of Heads of Statistical Services is to coordinate and approve in 2027 a list of socio-economic and migration indicators to be included in national population census programmes in order to ensure the comparability of the main census results between the countries across the CIS region.
The most recent decennial round of population censuses, the 2020 round initiated by the United Nations, was completed in 2024. Within the Commonwealth, national censuses were conducted in nine out of ten countries. A total of 215 million people were enumerated representing approximately 85% of the Commonwealth population.
In 2025, the United Nations approved the main documents for the 2030 World Population and Housing Census Programme.
To ensure the cross-country comparability of the main population census results across the Commonwealth, following discussions with national statistical services the CIS Statistical Committee proposed to stick to the approach used in the 2020 round. This would include:
- adopting a Decision of the Heads of State Council;
- preparing a list of indicators for the harmonised measurement of the migration and labour force;
- developing methodological recommendations for including relevant questions in the census questionnaires and recording responses to these questions;
- preparing table templates for the interstate exchange of information.