Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union
1.2. Contact organisation unit
F2: Population and Migration
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
23 January 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
23 January 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
23 January 2025
3.1. Data description
Residence permits data collection refers to residence permits as any authorisation issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a third-country national (non-EU citizen) to stay legally on its territory. These statistics cover also some specific cases in which the third-country nationals have the right to be move to and stay in other EU Member States.
Data is based on administrative sources1, provided mainly by the Ministries of Interior or related Immigration Agencies. Data are generally disseminated in July in the year following the reference year, subject to data availability and data quality.
the main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
First residence permits;
Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay;
Residence permits valid at the end of the year;
Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year;
Long-term permits issued during the year.
Statistics collected on voluntary basis
Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.
The definitions used for residence permits and other concepts (e.g. first permit) are presented in the section 3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions. The detailed data collection methodology is presented in Annex 9 of this metadata file.
Temporary protection status is considered of different administrative nature then the residence permits reported in RESPER data collection. Therefore, persons benefitting from temporary protection are not included in any of the Residence permits statistics. These persons are subject of another data collection on Temporary Protection (TP).
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Residence data contain statistical information based on Article 6 of Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007. This legal framework refers to the initial residence permits data collection with 2008 first reference period (e.g. first residence permits; change of immigration status or reason to stay; all valid residence permits in the end of the year and long-term residence permits valid in the end of the year) and it provides also a general framework for newer data collections based on specific European legal acts (e.g. statistics on EU Blue Cards and statistics on single permits) or provided on voluntary basis (e.g. residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status).
Regulation 2020/851 amending Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007 was recently implemented. The amendment introduced several changes to the statistics on Asylum and Managed Migration. Some data collections become mandatory starting with the 2021 reference period, while new statistics are subject to pilot studies for further assessing the feasibility of collecting these statistics.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Starting with the 2021 reference period, there were several improvements in the data collection, including the methodological aspects. These changes were introduced through the implementation of Regulation 2020/851 amending Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007. More details are available in the Annex 9.
Starting from 2025, the residence permits and EU directives data collection now includes six metadata files in total. Countries are required to submit six distinct files. For those that have not yet provided the updated six files, the previous metadata format, included in the annex of this metadata file (Annex 10), remains available as a reference.
INDICATORS
The indicators presented in the table 'Long-term residents among all non-EU citizens holding residence permits by citizenship on 31 December (%)' are produced within the framework of the pilot study related to the integration of migrants in the Member States, following the Zaragoza Declaration.
The Zaragoza Declaration, adopted in April 2010 by EU Ministers responsible for immigrant integration issues, and approved at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 3-4 June 2010, called upon the Commission to undertake a pilot study to examine proposals for common integration indicators and to report on the availability and quality of the data from agreed harmonised sources necessary for the calculation of these indicators. In June 2010 the ministers agreed "to promote the launching of a pilot project with a view to the evaluation of integration policies, including examining the indicators and analysing the significance of the defined indicators taking into account the national contexts, the background of diverse migrant populations and different migration and integration policies of the Member States, and reporting on the availability and quality of the data from agreed harmonised sources necessary for the calculation of these indicators".
These indicators are produced on the basis of residence permit statistics collected by Eurostat on the basis of Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation 862/2007. As a denominator data on the stock of all valid permits to stay at the end of each reporting year are used. As a numerator data on the stock of long-term residents are used. Two types of long term residents are distinguished in accordance with the residence permit statistics: EU long-term resident status (as regulated by the Council Directive 2003/109/EC) and the National long-term resident status (as regulated by the national legislation in the Member States).
DATA CONSISTENCY
The data providers should use the same methodological specifications provided by Eurostat and some collected tables from should be cross-consistent according to this methodology. However, consistency issues between tables exist due to some technical limitations (e.g. different data sources) or different methodology applied to each table (see the quality information from below or the national metadata files) or different point in time of producing each tables.
1There are few exceptions referring to the situation in which the administrative registers cannot provide the required information and some estimations are made. For example, the statistics for the United Kingdom (2008-2019) use different data sources to those used in EU Member States and EFTA countries. For that reason, the statistics on residence permits published by Eurostat for UK may not be fully comparable with the statistics reported by other countries. 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. Another example is the data on stock of all valid residence permits for Denmark, see Annex 8 (Data quality of valid residence permits in Denmark).
3.2. Classification system
Classification of citizenship is based on the ISO-3166 code list (using alpha-2) with minor changes.
These differences consist of minor changes that have occurred over time to reflect the creation of new countries or citizenships. In some cases, these citizenship categories are not universally recognised but are used by some Member States in the data supplied to Eurostat.
A further case is that of "Recognised non-citizen" – a category introduced by Eurostat to cover a "person who is not a citizen of the reporting country nor of any other country, but who has established links to that country including some but not all rights and obligations of full citizenship. Recognised non-citizens are not included in number of EU citizens." This category is used in Eurostat's population and migration statistics.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Migration statistics.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Residence permit:
Any authorisation valid for at least 3 months issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a third-country national to stay legally on its territory. According to Article 6.2 of the Council Regulation (CE) No 862/2007 of 11 July 2007, 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.
Temporary protection status is considered of different administrative nature then the residence permits reported in Residence Permits data collection. Therefore, persons benefitting from temporary protection are not included in any of the Residence permits statistics. These persons are subject of another data collection on Temporary Protection (TP).
First permit:
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 old permit and the start of validity of the new permit issued for the same reason is at least 6 months, irrespective of the year of issuance of the permit.
The convention of first permit relates to permits issued at all levels of administrative/judicial instances and by all national authorities. Thus, if at the first instance permission to reside was not granted but an appeal decision was positive at the second instance, the permission (resulting from appeal decision) shall be considered to be a first permit (if of course the time gap conditions are met).
Permits granted during the reference period on the occasion of a person changing immigration status or reason to stay:
Permission to reside is considered as a change of immigration status or reason to stay if the period between the expiry of the old permit and the start of validity of the following permit is less than 6 months and the immigration status or reason to stay has been changed.
Only changes between major categories can be recorded as a change of status permit. These major categories are:
reasons related to family formation and reunification;
reasons related to education and study;
reasons related to remunerated activities;
other reasons.
Statistics related to the change of immigration status/reason to stay include permissions granted at all levels of administrative/judicial instances and by all national authorities.
Long-term residents:
Long-term resident status refers to permits issued under Council Directive 2003/109/EC. This is based on a total duration of legal residence of 5 years or longer, combined with a series of other conditions that must be met to qualify for this status.
Third-country nationals:
Any person who is not a citizen of the Union within the meaning of Article 17 (1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons (see Art. 2.1 (i) of the Council Regulation (EC) no 862/2007).
FRPS permit:
FRPS permit means residence permit issued to a third-country national for the purpose of family reunification under Family Reunification Directive 2003/86/EC, family unity under Article 23 of the Qualification Directive (Directive 2011/95/EU) or relevant national legislation where the sponsor is a beneficiary of protection status.
For further information on definitions, please see Annex 9 for complete methodological guidelines.
For further information on the compliance with definitions, please see Annex 1 and the national metadata files.
3.5. Statistical unit
Each table refers to the number of persons, not to the number of administrative decisions or acts.
For the exceptions please see Annex 1.
3.6. Statistical population
The Residence permits statistics refer to the third-country nationals who received a residence permits in the EU Member States or EFTA countries or the United Kingdom. Please see "Concepts and definitions" for the details of the categories of permissions recorded under residence permits statistics.
3.7. Reference area
For Residence permits: EU Member States, the United Kingdom and EFTA countries.
3.8. Coverage - Time
First reference year by data collection:
For the main Residence Permits data collection (Table RP1–RP7) the first reference year is 2008. Residence permit data disaggregated reason and by 'age' and 'sex' are available from 2010 onwards. The RP5AS table was introduced as mandatory from the 2021 reference year.
For Long-term residence permits issued during the year, table LTR, the first reference year is 2016. These statistics become mandatory starting with 2021 reference year. The LTRAS table is introduced as a mandatory provision from the 2021 reference year.
For the tables RP1AS, RP2AS, RP4AS, RP6AS and RP7AS the first reference year is 2010 and from 2021 reference year, their provision is mandatory.
For residence permits issued during the year/valid at the end of the year for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status (Table FRPS1 and FRPS2) the first reference year is 2016.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Units of measure are are in general absolute numbers of persons for residence permit statistics.
Calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
Member States have the responsibility to send residence permits statistics to Eurostat. The main legal act of the legal framework is the Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection.
Additional legal acts related to specific data collections:
Eurostat provide Technical Guidelines to the member States describing the procedures and the quality requirements for the statistics collected on voluntary basis.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Not available.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Not applicable.
8.1. Release calendar
Depending on the data availability, most of the statistics will be released by end September of the year following the reference year.
8.2. Release calendar access
Not applicable.
8.3. Release policy - user access
In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.
Member States have the responsibility to send residence permits statistics to Eurostat. Eurostat provides Technical Guidelines to the Member States describing the procedures and the quality requirements for the statistics collected. See Annex 13.
The main legal acts of the legal framework are represented by the Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007 (Article 6) on Community statistics in the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly qualified employment.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
See Annexes.
11.1. Quality assurance
Statistics on residence permits are based entirely on administrative sources. Member States compile data in compliance with the Council Regulation (EC) 862/2007 and following guidelines and instructions provided by Eurostat. Before publishing the data, consistent validation checks are performed.
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 lays down the common framework for compilation of statistics on migration and international protection. However, in order to produce comparable data harmonised between the Member States, it was necessary to complement it with an associated implementing measure adopted by the Commission:
Commission Regulation (EU) No 216/20102 defines the categories of reasons for residence permit issue for the statistics supplied under Article 6 of the Regulation. The reasons for permit issue relate to the immigration categories and sub-categories under which third-country nationals are permitted to reside (for example, persons permitted to reside for employment reasons, with a sub-category for those permissions granted under highly-skilled worker programmes).
Non-compliance follow-up measures have been launched by the Commission in response to the most serious cases of missing or incomplete data – where for example, no data have been supplied by a country in response to a data collection. Actions undertaken have demonstrated that a large majority of Member States make a serious effort to be compliant. In addition, in several cases, a solution to the difficulties could be found thanks to reciprocal collaboration between the national authorities and Commission's services.
Certain differences in definitions and practices of producing statistics exist between countries. Compliance with the Regulation requirements ensures a sufficient level of accuracy and comparability.
Number of Member States have introduced more integrated and comprehensive administrative systems that make use of modern IT and communication methods. Problems of missing and incomplete data still occur (see the annexes), often been caused by the non-recording of certain information in the administrative systems that are frequently used as data sources. A number of national authorities have introduced improved procedures to ensure that the necessary information is gathered as part of the immigration administrative process and better computing systems to allow this information to be readily accessed to be included in the statistical data. Non-compliance follow-up measures have been launched by the Commission in response to the most serious cases of missing or incomplete data – where for example, no data have been supplied by a country in response to a data collection. Actions undertaken have demonstrated that a large majority of Member States make a serious effort to be compliant (see also Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007).
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Within the Commission, the main user of migration and asylum statistics is DG Migration and Home Affairs. However, these statistics are also frequently used by other Directorates General, in particular, by DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and by DG Justice and Consumers.
One important use of the statistics has been a part of the allocation of the budgetary envelope for each Member State for the Solidarity and Management of Migration Flows Funds.
The statistics are used in several publications of the Commission, as well as in the preparation of regular reports, policy proposals and analysis. For example, the Commission's Annual Report on Migration and Asylum uses these statistics as a means to quantify progress made towards the implementation of the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum and to highlight recommendations for further actions. Migration and asylum statistics are also used by the European Migration Network (EMN) as a basis for its annual EU- and national-level statistical and analytical reports. The statistics also provide input to the EMN studies and reports that address specific issues of current policy importance. The statistics collected under the Regulation are widely used in official publications and by a wide range of users. In addition to publication on the Eurostat website and on-line dissemination database, there are regular Eurostat publications that provide updated statistics and statistical commentary. The statistics produced under the Regulation are regularly used by national administrations, academic researchers and civil society groups working on a wide range of topics including the integration of immigrants, the development and monitoring of national asylum and immigration procedures, and the projection of the future population and labour force.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
An indicator of the relevance of the migration data to Eurostat's users is the number of data or publications downloaded from the Eurostat's website. Based on the report from 10 February 2023, about 25 000 data extractions were recorded for Residence permits statistics.
The following datasets were in the top of the extractions for this period:
First permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship.
All valid permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship on 31 December of each year.
12.3. Completeness
The implementation of the Regulation has resulted in increases in the completeness and degree of harmonisation of European statistics on migration and international protection. However, despite these improvements, further work is still needed for some of the statistics collected and in some of the Member States. Problems of missing and incomplete data still occur. These problems can vary from the total non-supply of any data covered by an article of the Regulation in the worst cases, to the non-availability of a specific table or disaggregation. Where disaggregations are lacking, this has often been caused by the non-recording of certain information in the administrative systems that are frequently used as data sources.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The accuracy of the data collected under Article 6 of the Regulation depends on the accuracy and efficiency of the underlying administrative systems. The widespread redevelopment of administrative systems had a strongly positive impact on the accuracy of the statistical data.
Data are collected from reliable administrative sources in the EU Member States and EFTA countries with the exception of the United Kingdom.
Please note that the statistics for the United Kingdom (2008-2019) use different data sources to those used in EU Member States and EFTA countries. For that reason, statistics for the UK presented in the statistics published by Eurostat may not be fully comparable with the statistics reported by other countries. 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.
Denmark provides the data for all valid permits using the combination of various sources; a combination of data from The Danish Immigration and Danish Statistics, can be found at this website DST Documentation of statistics.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Data should be supplied to Eurostat no later than 6 months after the end of the reference period.
14.2. Punctuality
Residence permit data are generally published within 7 months after the reference year.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Some administrative differences still exist between the Member States due to the national specific legal acts. For the analytical purposes and comparisons between the countries please see the national metadata files.
15.2. Comparability - over time
The residence permit statistics should be compiled based on the same methodology and the outputs should be comparable between years. Due to the ongoing methodological improvements which may occur at different reference periods, for some categories of permits Member States may apply different rules for the same years. For the analytical purposes and comparisons between the years please see the methodological annexes concerning the level of compliance with definitions and data completeness (Annex 1, Annex 2 and Annex 3).
There is a break in time series in 2018 data reported by Poland for first permits caused by (i) free travel-visas for Ukrainian, Georgian and Moldavian citizens, (ii) the increase of the number of Pole's cardholders granted residence permit and (iii) enter into force of the Seasonal Workers Directive 2014/36/EU. This break in time series refers mainly to the first residence permits issued for "remunerated activities" and for "other" reasons and it has a significant impact on the EU aggregates for these categories. See Annex 7 for more information.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Internal coherence (e.g. between years, a coherent classification of issued permits) is ensured through the application of the resident permits methodology and through the various validations performed on the data before publication. An important aspect is that residence permit data collection is based on administrative sources following almost the same procedures (due to the lacking administrative register the only exception is the UK, for details please see Annex 4). Following the ongoing improvements of data processing and validation, some revisions of data are expected from the Member States. The majority of issues regarding internal coherence are included in the methodological annexes concerning the level of compliance with definitions and data completeness (Annex 1, Annex 2 and Annex 3).
The types of statistics required under the Regulation are needed also for national purposes, such as for the management of the national system for processing asylum applications or for the monitoring of border control policies. In almost all cases, the data used to produce the statistics are based on existing administrative and statistical systems. The specific burdens placed by the Regulation on national authorities are therefore related to the need to prepare particular disaggregations or tables that might not otherwise have been produced, and to the need to apply the harmonised statistical definitions and concepts. For some national authorities, this resulted in one-off costs associated with the necessary adaptations to methods, procedures and systems.
The extent of the additional burdens varied between the Member States according to the degree of similarity between the existing national systems for migration statistics and the requirements of the Regulation. However, in most Member States and for most of the statistics covered by the Regulation, the additional costs and burden are believed to be relatively limited and to be proportionate to the benefits obtained at both EU and national level of having more complete and better harmonised migration statistics.
17.1. Data revision - policy
The general Eurostat revision policy applies to this domain. According to the policy for routine revisions, national data continue to be revised when additional information from national authorities becomes available. If errors are detected in either national data or in European aggregates, they are corrected immediately. Major revisions and changes in methodology which may lead to breaks in time series shall be announced in advance by the national data providers and approved by Eurostat.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The revision practice aligns effectively with the one outlined in sub-concept 17.1 (data revision - policy). Reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated. Whenever new country data are validated, the already disseminated data are updated. Revisions of aggregates are made directly after revisions of country data transmitted to Eurostat. Time series breaks caused by major revisions are flagged. Major revisions are documented and communicated to users in a methodological note. Data may be published despite incomplete datasets, with some data missing or flagged as provisional or, in very exceptional cases, of low reliability for specific statistics. Such data are replaced with the final versions upon transmission and validation. The impact of major revisions is analysed in working documents produced for experts meetings held with representatives of the national data providers.
18.1. Source data
Most of the statistics are based on administrative data sources only. Data are compiled from the administrative records of the national authorities, mainly the Ministries of Interior or Immigration Agencies.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Annual.
18.3. Data collection
Residence permits data is annually collected from administrative sources, having as a statistical unit the number of persons (third-country nationals who received the residence permit). National data suppliers are sending the residence permits data for the following countries: EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
Data providers supply data to Eurostat in Excel templates via the Single Entry Point (SEP) with eDamis.
The residence permits data collection relates to reference periods of one calendar year and shall be completed by national data suppliers that are responsible at the national level for the transmission of the residence permits data to Eurostat (National Statistic Offices, Ministries of Interior or Immigration Agencies).
18.4. Data validation
Before publishing the data, consistent validation checks are performed. Residence permits data are validated through all processing steps, combining manual/visual validation with some tools integrated within the templates and the production environment.
The Member States shall apply the validation checks of the permit statistics before providing data to Eurostat. The statistical process is different in each country. Therefore, each country shall develop its own data validation system, depending on the national infrastructure.
With the aim of assuring the data quality and for harmonising the validation systems between MSs, Eurostat is involved in the following four main activities:
Setting the methodological framework for producing harmonised statistics between the MSs. The methodological requirements for Resper statistics are specified in the Technical Guidelines for data collection.
Promote the exchange of good practices between MSs related to the data processing and validation procedures. In this respect, different quality aspects of the statistics produced by Eurostat have been presented to the data providers.
Establishing a set of validation rules that should be applied to all the files that are provided to Eurostat
Provide some IT tools for data validation (e.g. Macro programs - VBA) that allow data providers to check the files before data transmission.
A series of macros have been included in the Excel files (the templates for data collection) in order to allow the data providers to perform the data validation before they are transmitted to Eurostat. A report is produced by this macro with the indication of the cells with problems.
18.5. Data compilation
List of EU aggregates used in Residence permits statistics:
• EU28 aggregate refers to European Union before the Brexit. This aggregate covers the following countries: BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, UK
• EU27_2019 aggregate refers to European Union (27 countries without the United Kingdom). This aggregate covers the following countries: BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE
EU aggregates are calculated only if all the Member States from the aggregate are available.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable.
The data series 'Long-term residents by citizenship on 31. December of each year' contains two categories of such permissions:
EU long-term resident status (This status is defined by Article 2(h) of the Migration Statistics Regulation i.e. to the definition of a long-term resident that is contained in Council Directive 2003/109/EC).
National long-term resident status (This category includes long-term resident status granted to third-country nationals under rules which are different from Council Directive 2003/109/EC). These data are available only since 2010.
Please note that for 2008 and 2009 reference periods the total of 'Long-term residents by citizenship on 31. December of each year' only includes the data on 'EU long-term resident status' (Long-term resident status: EU directive) permits' category.
Residence permits data collection refers to residence permits as any authorisation issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a third-country national (non-EU citizen) to stay legally on its territory. These statistics cover also some specific cases in which the third-country nationals have the right to be move to and stay in other EU Member States.
Data is based on administrative sources1, provided mainly by the Ministries of Interior or related Immigration Agencies. Data are generally disseminated in July in the year following the reference year, subject to data availability and data quality.
the main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
First residence permits;
Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay;
Residence permits valid at the end of the year;
Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year;
Long-term permits issued during the year.
Statistics collected on voluntary basis
Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.
The definitions used for residence permits and other concepts (e.g. first permit) are presented in the section 3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions. The detailed data collection methodology is presented in Annex 9 of this metadata file.
Temporary protection status is considered of different administrative nature then the residence permits reported in RESPER data collection. Therefore, persons benefitting from temporary protection are not included in any of the Residence permits statistics. These persons are subject of another data collection on Temporary Protection (TP).
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Residence data contain statistical information based on Article 6 of Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007. This legal framework refers to the initial residence permits data collection with 2008 first reference period (e.g. first residence permits; change of immigration status or reason to stay; all valid residence permits in the end of the year and long-term residence permits valid in the end of the year) and it provides also a general framework for newer data collections based on specific European legal acts (e.g. statistics on EU Blue Cards and statistics on single permits) or provided on voluntary basis (e.g. residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status).
Regulation 2020/851 amending Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007 was recently implemented. The amendment introduced several changes to the statistics on Asylum and Managed Migration. Some data collections become mandatory starting with the 2021 reference period, while new statistics are subject to pilot studies for further assessing the feasibility of collecting these statistics.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Starting with the 2021 reference period, there were several improvements in the data collection, including the methodological aspects. These changes were introduced through the implementation of Regulation 2020/851 amending Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007. More details are available in the Annex 9.
Starting from 2025, the residence permits and EU directives data collection now includes six metadata files in total. Countries are required to submit six distinct files. For those that have not yet provided the updated six files, the previous metadata format, included in the annex of this metadata file (Annex 10), remains available as a reference.
INDICATORS
The indicators presented in the table 'Long-term residents among all non-EU citizens holding residence permits by citizenship on 31 December (%)' are produced within the framework of the pilot study related to the integration of migrants in the Member States, following the Zaragoza Declaration.
The Zaragoza Declaration, adopted in April 2010 by EU Ministers responsible for immigrant integration issues, and approved at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 3-4 June 2010, called upon the Commission to undertake a pilot study to examine proposals for common integration indicators and to report on the availability and quality of the data from agreed harmonised sources necessary for the calculation of these indicators. In June 2010 the ministers agreed "to promote the launching of a pilot project with a view to the evaluation of integration policies, including examining the indicators and analysing the significance of the defined indicators taking into account the national contexts, the background of diverse migrant populations and different migration and integration policies of the Member States, and reporting on the availability and quality of the data from agreed harmonised sources necessary for the calculation of these indicators".
These indicators are produced on the basis of residence permit statistics collected by Eurostat on the basis of Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation 862/2007. As a denominator data on the stock of all valid permits to stay at the end of each reporting year are used. As a numerator data on the stock of long-term residents are used. Two types of long term residents are distinguished in accordance with the residence permit statistics: EU long-term resident status (as regulated by the Council Directive 2003/109/EC) and the National long-term resident status (as regulated by the national legislation in the Member States).
DATA CONSISTENCY
The data providers should use the same methodological specifications provided by Eurostat and some collected tables from should be cross-consistent according to this methodology. However, consistency issues between tables exist due to some technical limitations (e.g. different data sources) or different methodology applied to each table (see the quality information from below or the national metadata files) or different point in time of producing each tables.
1There are few exceptions referring to the situation in which the administrative registers cannot provide the required information and some estimations are made. For example, the statistics for the United Kingdom (2008-2019) use different data sources to those used in EU Member States and EFTA countries. For that reason, the statistics on residence permits published by Eurostat for UK may not be fully comparable with the statistics reported by other countries. 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. Another example is the data on stock of all valid residence permits for Denmark, see Annex 8 (Data quality of valid residence permits in Denmark).
23 January 2025
Residence permit:
Any authorisation valid for at least 3 months issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a third-country national to stay legally on its territory. According to Article 6.2 of the Council Regulation (CE) No 862/2007 of 11 July 2007, 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.
Temporary protection status is considered of different administrative nature then the residence permits reported in Residence Permits data collection. Therefore, persons benefitting from temporary protection are not included in any of the Residence permits statistics. These persons are subject of another data collection on Temporary Protection (TP).
First permit:
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 old permit and the start of validity of the new permit issued for the same reason is at least 6 months, irrespective of the year of issuance of the permit.
The convention of first permit relates to permits issued at all levels of administrative/judicial instances and by all national authorities. Thus, if at the first instance permission to reside was not granted but an appeal decision was positive at the second instance, the permission (resulting from appeal decision) shall be considered to be a first permit (if of course the time gap conditions are met).
Permits granted during the reference period on the occasion of a person changing immigration status or reason to stay:
Permission to reside is considered as a change of immigration status or reason to stay if the period between the expiry of the old permit and the start of validity of the following permit is less than 6 months and the immigration status or reason to stay has been changed.
Only changes between major categories can be recorded as a change of status permit. These major categories are:
reasons related to family formation and reunification;
reasons related to education and study;
reasons related to remunerated activities;
other reasons.
Statistics related to the change of immigration status/reason to stay include permissions granted at all levels of administrative/judicial instances and by all national authorities.
Long-term residents:
Long-term resident status refers to permits issued under Council Directive 2003/109/EC. This is based on a total duration of legal residence of 5 years or longer, combined with a series of other conditions that must be met to qualify for this status.
Third-country nationals:
Any person who is not a citizen of the Union within the meaning of Article 17 (1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons (see Art. 2.1 (i) of the Council Regulation (EC) no 862/2007).
FRPS permit:
FRPS permit means residence permit issued to a third-country national for the purpose of family reunification under Family Reunification Directive 2003/86/EC, family unity under Article 23 of the Qualification Directive (Directive 2011/95/EU) or relevant national legislation where the sponsor is a beneficiary of protection status.
For further information on definitions, please see Annex 9 for complete methodological guidelines.
For further information on the compliance with definitions, please see Annex 1 and the national metadata files.
Each table refers to the number of persons, not to the number of administrative decisions or acts.
For the exceptions please see Annex 1.
The Residence permits statistics refer to the third-country nationals who received a residence permits in the EU Member States or EFTA countries or the United Kingdom. Please see "Concepts and definitions" for the details of the categories of permissions recorded under residence permits statistics.
For Residence permits: EU Member States, the United Kingdom and EFTA countries.
Calendar year.
The accuracy of the data collected under Article 6 of the Regulation depends on the accuracy and efficiency of the underlying administrative systems. The widespread redevelopment of administrative systems had a strongly positive impact on the accuracy of the statistical data.
Data are collected from reliable administrative sources in the EU Member States and EFTA countries with the exception of the United Kingdom.
Please note that the statistics for the United Kingdom (2008-2019) use different data sources to those used in EU Member States and EFTA countries. For that reason, statistics for the UK presented in the statistics published by Eurostat may not be fully comparable with the statistics reported by other countries. 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.
Denmark provides the data for all valid permits using the combination of various sources; a combination of data from The Danish Immigration and Danish Statistics, can be found at this website DST Documentation of statistics.
Units of measure are are in general absolute numbers of persons for residence permit statistics.
List of EU aggregates used in Residence permits statistics:
• EU28 aggregate refers to European Union before the Brexit. This aggregate covers the following countries: BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, UK
• EU27_2019 aggregate refers to European Union (27 countries without the United Kingdom). This aggregate covers the following countries: BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE
EU aggregates are calculated only if all the Member States from the aggregate are available.
Most of the statistics are based on administrative data sources only. Data are compiled from the administrative records of the national authorities, mainly the Ministries of Interior or Immigration Agencies.
Annual.
Data should be supplied to Eurostat no later than 6 months after the end of the reference period.
Some administrative differences still exist between the Member States due to the national specific legal acts. For the analytical purposes and comparisons between the countries please see the national metadata files.
The residence permit statistics should be compiled based on the same methodology and the outputs should be comparable between years. Due to the ongoing methodological improvements which may occur at different reference periods, for some categories of permits Member States may apply different rules for the same years. For the analytical purposes and comparisons between the years please see the methodological annexes concerning the level of compliance with definitions and data completeness (Annex 1, Annex 2 and Annex 3).
There is a break in time series in 2018 data reported by Poland for first permits caused by (i) free travel-visas for Ukrainian, Georgian and Moldavian citizens, (ii) the increase of the number of Pole's cardholders granted residence permit and (iii) enter into force of the Seasonal Workers Directive 2014/36/EU. This break in time series refers mainly to the first residence permits issued for "remunerated activities" and for "other" reasons and it has a significant impact on the EU aggregates for these categories. See Annex 7 for more information.
