In 2011, 33.3 million foreign citizens ⁽¹⁾ lived in the 27 EU member states, accounting for 6.6% of the EU27 population. This ‘foreign’ population comprised 12.8 million EU citizens living in another member state (ie 2.5% of the EU27 population), and 20.5 million non-EU citizens (ie 4.1% of the EU27 population), according to a report published by Eurostat, on 11 July ⁽²⁾.

The largest numbers of foreign citizens were recorded in Germany (7.2 million persons or 9% of the total population), Spain (5.7 million or 12%), Italy (4.6 million or 8%), the UK (4.5 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.

The highest proportion of foreign citizens in the population was observed in Luxembourg (43%), followed by Cyprus (20%), Latvia (17%) and Estonia (16%). The percentage of foreign citizens was less than 2% in Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia.

Focusing on EU citizens, Luxembourg recorded the highest proportion of foreign EU citizens (37% of the total population), followed by Cyprus (13%), Belgium and Ireland (both 7%), Spain (5%) and Austria (4%).

In 2011, there were 48.9 million foreign-born (ie born outside their habitual country of residence) people living in the EU member states, with 16.5 million born in another member state than the one in which they live (3.3% of the EU population) and 32.4 million born in a country outside the EU27 (6.4% of the EU population). In total, foreign-born people accounted for 9.7% of the total population of the EU27.

⁽¹⁾ Foreign citizens are persons who are not citizens of the country they live in
⁽²⁾ Statistics in short, 31/2012, available at ec.europa.eu/eurostat