The city, as well as the entire Maglaj municipality, have been subject to a large demographic population shift. Close to all of its pre-war Christian inhabitants, i.e. Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, who made up the majority of the pre-war municipality population, no longer reside in the Maglaj municipality.

The Serbian population has largely settled in the Doboj and Modriča regions of the Republika Srpska, while the Catholic Croatian population has settled in the nearby municipality of Žepče, an enclave inhabited largely by Croats. A significant number of former Croat inhabitants have also settled in Croatia's capital Zagreb. Due to severe fighting around Maglaj throughout the Bosnian Civil War, and the catasrophic conditions it was exposed to, numerous Muslims have departed the region as well.

Pre-war Maglaj was unique because over one third of its married couples were made up of mixed ethnic groups. As a result of this, a great number of these Maglaj inhabitants felt welcome by none of the three warring ethnic groups, and tried to settle abroad.

Consequentially, former Maglaj residents have dispersed throughout the world, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, the Czech Republic, Canada, the United States, and Australia among others. All former residents of Maglaj are likely never to return as they have adapted to their new surroundings, and those settled in the West enjoy remarkably high standards of living.