At the start of 2022, half of Luxembourg’s population was foreign-born - 33.8% was born in another EU country and 15.6% was born outside of the EU - but still far ahead of Malta (23.6%) and Cyprus (22.7%).
30.8% of foreign citizens in Luxembourg are from Portugal, 16.2% from France and 7.9% from Italy.
In absolute terms, the biggest populations of foreign-born citizens (from other EU members and non-EU countries) were registered in Germany (15.3 million people), France (8.7 million) and Spain (7.4 million).
In 2021, an estimated 2.3 million immigrants came to the EU from non-EU countries and about 1.1 million emigrated from the EU to a country outside the union. This is much higher than in 2020, when those figures were 1.9 million and 956,000, respectively. In addition, 1.4 million people migrated between EU countries (1.2 million in 2020).
Other countries with high rates of immigration include Malta (35 per 1,000) and Cyprus (27 per 1,000). On the other end of the spectrum are Slovakia (1 per 1,000), as well as France and Portugal (5 per 1,000).
In 2021, 827,300 people acquired the citizenship of the EU Member State in which they lived, corresponding to an increase of around 14 % compared with 2020.
Spain had the highest number of persons acquiring citizenship in 2021 (144,000, or 17% of the EU total). The next highest figures for acquisition of citizenship were in France (130,400, or 16%), Germany (130,000, or 16%), Italy (121,500, or 15%) and Sweden (89,400, or 11%).
In Hungary and Luxembourg, the majority of new citizenships (71% and 65%, respectively) were granted to citizens of another EU Member State. In the case of Luxembourg, Portuguese citizens accounted for the largest share of EU nationals (35%), followed by French (21%), Belgian (11%) and Italian (8%) citizens. In Hungary, the most numerous EU nationals acquiring citizenship were Romanians (74%), with Slovakians (17%) the second largest group.
Moroccans were the largest group among new EU citizens (86,100, of which 90% acquired citizenship of Spain, France, or Italy), followed by Syrians (83,500; 70% acquired citizenship of Sweden or Netherlands).
Read the full report here.
