Foreign citizens made up 6.5% of the EU27 population in 2010 Foreign-born people accounted for 9.4% of the EU27 population

STAT/11/105

14 July 2011

Foreign citizens made up 6.5% of the EU27 population in 2010
Foreign-born people accounted for 9.4% of the EU27 population

In 2010, 32.5 million foreign citizens1 lived in the EU27 Member States, of which 12.3 million were citizens of another EU27 Member State and the remaining 20.2 million were citizens of countries outside the EU27. Foreign citizens accounted for 6.5% of the total EU27 population. On average in 2010, foreign citizens living in the EU27 were significantly younger than the population of nationals (median age2 34.4 years compared with 41.5 years).

These figures come from a report3 published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

The proportion of foreign citizens varied between less than 2% in Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia and 43% in Luxembourg

In 2010, the largest numbers of foreign citizens were recorded in Germany (7.1 million persons or 9% of the total population), Spain (5.7 million or 12%), the United Kingdom (4.4 million or 7%), Italy (4.2 million or 7%) and France (3.8 million or 6%). In total, more than 75% of the foreign citizens in the EU27 lived in these five Member States.

Among the EU27 Member States, the highest percentage of foreign citizens in the population was observed in Luxembourg (43% of the total population), followed by Latvia4 (17%), Estonia4 and Cyprus (both 16%). The percentage of foreign citizens was less than 2% in Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia.

In terms of citizenship, nearly 40% of the EU foreign population were citizens of another EU27 Member State, with the highest shares in Luxembourg (86% of the foreign population), Ireland (80%), Belgium (68%), Cyprus (66%), Slovakia (62%) and Hungary (59%).

A third of the foreign-born population born in another EU27 Member State

Data on foreign citizens provide useful information on the part of the population with a foreign background. However, since citizenship can change over time, it is interesting to complement this information with data on the foreign-born population1. This provides supplementary information as it includes foreign citizens who have acquired the citizenship of the country of residence, but who were born abroad. It also includes nationals born abroad (for example in the territory of a former colony) or nationals born in a part of a state which, due to dissolution or border changes, no longer belongs to the same country. The number of foreign-born people exceeded the number of foreign citizens in all Member States, except in Luxembourg, Latvia and the Czech Republic.

In 2010, there were 47.3 million foreign-born people living in the EU27, with 16.0 million born in another EU27 Member State and 31.4 million born in a country outside the EU27. In total, foreign-born people accounted for 9.4% of the total population of the EU27.

Data on the place of birth of the foreign-born population show that one third of foreign-born people living in the EU27 were born in another EU27 Member State, with proportions above 50% being observed in Luxembourg (83% of total foreign-born), Ireland (77%) and Hungary (67%).

Population of foreign citizens, 2010

: Data not available

* Eurostat estimate

** Provisional

Foreign-born population, 2010

: Data not available

* Eurostat estimate

** Provisional

• Citizenship means the particular legal bond between an individual and his or her State, acquired by birth or naturalisation, whether by declaration, choice, marriage or other means under national legislation.

Foreign citizens refer to persons who are not citizens of the country in which they reside. They also include stateless persons.

Foreign-born is a person whose place of birth, or residence of the mother at the time of birth, is outside the country of his/her usual residence.

• The median age is the age which divides the total population into two equal groups. Half of the population are older and half are younger than this age.

• Eurostat, Statistics in Focus, 34/2011, "6.5% of the EU population are foreigners and 9.4% are born abroad", available free of charge in pdf format on the Eurostat web site.

• In the case of Latvia and Estonia, the proportion of non-EU foreign citizens is particularly large due to the high number of ‘recognised non-citizens’, mainly former Soviet Union citizens, who are permanently resident in these countries but have not acquired Latvian/Estonian citizenship or any other citizenship. The foreign-born would include people who were born in other parts of the former Soviet Union.

Eurostat press releases on the internet: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat