At the end of 2019, there were 20.3 million valid residence permits permitting non-EU citizens to reside in the EU-27.
The number of valid residence permits at the end of 2019 was highest in Germany (4.9 million, or 24% of the total stock of valid residence permits in the EU), followed by Italy (3.6 million, or 18%), France (3.1 million, or 15%) and Spain (2.9 million, or 14%). These four Member States together accounted for 71% of the total number of valid residence permits granted to non-EU citizens.
At the end of 2019, citizens of Morocco were the largest group holding valid residence permits (2.0 million), followed by citizens of Türkiye (1.9 million), Ukraine (1.3 million) and China (including Hong Kong; 1.0 million). These were the only citizenships that held more than one million valid residence permits.
The next highest numbers were recorded for citizens of Syria (974 000), Albania (868 000), Algeria (700 000), Russia (689 000), India (555 000) and Serbia (504 000). Citizens of these 10 countries accounted for more than half (51%) of the total number of permits among non-EU citizens holding valid residence permit in the EU-27.
For more information:
- The source data can be found in Eurostat dataset: migr_resvalid.
- Eurostat Statistics Explained article Residence permits - statistics on stock of valid permits at the end of the year.
Note: The European Union (EU) includes 27 EU Member States. The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Further information is published here.
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