More than 2.3 million first residence permits issued in the EU28 in 2013 - Hoofdinhoud

eurostatHnewsrelease

STAT/14/159 22 October 2014

Residence permits for non-EU citizens in the EU28

More than 2.3 million first residence permits issued intheEU28in2013

Main beneficiaries from Ukraine

In 2013, 2.36 million first residence permits¹ were issued in the EU28 to non-EU citizens, up by 12.5% compared with 2012 but down by 7.0% compared with 2008. The decrease recorded from 2008 is mainly due to the fall in the number of first permits issued for employment reasons (from 0.8 million in 2008 to 0.5 mn in 2013). In 2013, 28.5% of first residence permits were issued for family reasons, 19.7% for education, 22.7% for employment reasons and 29.1 % for other reasons².

First residence permits issued in the EU28 by reasons, 2008-2013

3,000,000

2,500,000

2,000,000

1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

O

I I I I I I

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Other

Employment

Education

Family

EU28 aggregate excluding Luxembourg for 2008 and Croatia for the years 2008-2012.

These administrative data³ on residence permits in the EU28 are published in a report⁴ issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Highest number of permits issued for family reasons in Italy and Spain, for education in the United Kingdom and for employment in Poland

In 2013, the highest number of residence permits was reported by the United Kingdom⁵ (724 200 residence permits issued, or 30.7% of total permits issued in the EU28), followed by Poland (273 900, or 11.6%), Italy (244 000, or 10.3%), France (212 100, or 9.0%), Germany (199 900, or 8.5%) and Spain (196 200, or 8.3%). Together, these six Member States accounted for almost 80% of all residence permits issued in the EU28 in 2013.

With around 108 000 permits each, Italy and Spain were the two Member States with the highest number of permits issued for family reasons in 2013. The United Kingdom⁵ (183 200) was by far the first destination for education related permits. The highest number of residence permits issued for employment reasons was observed in Poland (141 700).

First residence permits issued in the EU28 by reason, 2013

In 18 Member States, the largest numbers of permits were issued for family reasons, with the highest shares observed in Croatia (64.9% of all residence permits issued in the Member State), Greece (59.3%), Spain (54.8%), Belgium (52.4%) and Luxembourg (51.6%). Education was the main reason in Ireland (65.3% of all residence permits issued in the Member State) and Hungary (32.8%). In six Member States, the main reason for issuing residence permits was employment, the highest shares being recorded in Lithuania (61.3% of all residence permits issued in the Member State), Cyprus (57.7%) and Poland (51.7%).

Compared with the population of each Member State, the highest rates of first residence permits issued in 2013 were recorded in Malta (24.1 first permits issued per thousand inhabitants), Cyprus (13.3), the United Kingdom⁵ (11.3) and Sweden (10.3). Rates below 1 permit per thousand inhabitants were observed in four Member States: Romania (0.6), Croatia and Slovakia (both 0.8) and Bulgaria (0.9). In 2013, 4.7 first residence permits were issued per thousand inhabitants in the EU28.

Ukraine, India and United States: 3 citizenships granted the most residence permits

In 2013, citizens of Ukraine (236 700 beneficiaries, or 10.0% of the total number of new residence permits issued in the EU28) received the highest number of permits, ahead citizens of India (200 800, or 8.5%), of the United States (171 800, or 7.3%) and of China (165 600, or 7.0%). A third of all new residence permits issued in the EU28 in 2013 was issued to citizens of these four countries.

Main citizenships of persons granted first residence permits in the EU28 by reasons, 2013

• * 

  China, including Hong Kong

Ukrainians for employment, Chinese for education and Moroccans for family reasons

The reasons for residence permits being issued differ between citizenships. Among the top 10 citizenships granted permits in the EU28 in 2013, Ukrainians benefited from residence permits mainly for employment reasons (64.1% of the first residence permits issued to Ukrainians in 2013), Chinese (59.9%) and Brazilians (43.5%) for education reasons, Moroccans (65.5%), Turks (48.7%) and Russians (32.7%) for family reasons.

Top 10 citizenships granted first residence permits in the EU28 by reasons (%), 2013

■ Family

■ Education

■ Employment

■ Other

• * 

  China, including Hong Kong

Ukrainians received permits mainly in Poland, Indians and US citizens in the United Kingdom

Certain citizenships were granted residence permits predominantly by particular Member States. Of the 236 700 Ukrainians granted residence permits in the EU28 in 2013, more than 70% were recorded in Poland (171 800). Of the 200 800 Indians granted residence permits, almost 70% were registered in the United Kingdom⁵, and for Americans (171 800) more than 60% were registered in the United Kingdom (105 700).

First residence permits issued in the EU28 by citizenship, 2013

• * 

  China including Hong Kong.

** A recognised non-citizen is a person who is neither a citizen of the reporting country nor of any other country, and who has established links to the reporting country which include some but not all rights and obligations of full citizenship. A majority of these persons were citizens of the former Soviet Union.

*** Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244

• 1. 

  First residence permit means a residence permit issued to a person for the first time. A residence permit is considered as a first permit also if the time gap between the expiry of the previous permit and the start of validity of the new permit is at least 6 months.

Residence permit means any authorisation valid for at least 3 months issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a non-EU citizen to stay legally on its territory. When national laws and administrative practices of a Member State allow for specific categories of long-term visa or immigration status to be granted instead of residence permits, such visas and grants of statuses are also included in these statistics.

Statistics on first residence permits presented in this report refer to non-EU citizens only and include persons subject to an authorisation to stay with a validity of at least 3 months and consequently these statistics are different than statistics on migration to the reporting countries (according to migration statistics migrant is a person who stays or intends to stay in the country for at least 12 months).

• 2. 

  Other reasons include permits issued for residence only (e.g. pensioners with sufficient financial means), international protection status (including refugee status and subsidiary protection), humanitarian reasons, permits issued to non-asylum related unaccompanied minors, victims of trafficking in human beings and other reasons not specified (e.g. beneficiaries of national regularisation programmes, diplomats).

• 3. 

  The data in this release are provided to Eurostat by Ministries of the Interior or Justice, or immigration agencies, of the Member States. These administrative data are supplied by Member States according to the provisions of Article 6 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 of 11 July 2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection.

• 4. 

  Eurostat, Statistics Explained article on residence permits statistics. Available on the Eurostat website: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics explained/index. php/Residence permits statistics

• 5. 

  The statistics for the United Kingdom use different data sources to those used in other Member States. For that reason, statistics for the UK presented in this News Release may not be fully comparable with other statistics presented here. Statistics for the United Kingdom are not based on records of residence permits issued (as the United Kingdom does not operate a system of residence permits), but instead relate to the numbers of arriving non-EU citizens permitted to enter the country under selected immigration categories. According to the United Kingdom authorities, data are estimated from a combination of information due to be published in the Home Office Statistical Bulletin 'Control of Immigration: Statistics, United Kingdom' and unpublished management information. The 'Other reasons' category includes: diplomat, consular officer treated as exempt from control; retired persons of independent means; all other passengers given limited leave to enter who are not included in any other category; non-asylum discretionary permissions.

Issued by: Eurostat Press Office

For further information on the data:

Vincent BOURGEAIS Tel: +352-4301-33 444

Piotr JUCHNO Tel: +352-4301-36 240 piotr.juchno@ec.europa.eu

eurostat-pressoffice@ec.europa.eu

Eurostat News Releases on the internet http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

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