A new Eurostat release shows that in 2015, EU Member States issued 2.6 million first residence permits to non-EU citizens, an increase of 12.1% compared with 2014.
This increase was mainly due to the higher number of first permits issued for employment reasons (+23.5%, from slightly less than 0.6 million in 2014 to more than 0.7 million in 2015).
The total number of first residence permits issued by reason in the EU in 2015, were:-
- Family: 753,377 (28.9% of total number of permits issued)
- Education: 525,635 (20.2%)
- Employment: 707,598 (27.2%)
- Other: 619,019 (23.8%)
The Member States with the highest number of first residence permits issued to third country nationals in 2015, were:
- United Kingdom: 633,000 (24.3% of total permits issued)
- Poland: 541,600 (20.8%)
- France: 226,600 (8.7%)
- Germany: 194,800 (7.5%)
- Spain:192,900 (7.4%)
- Italy: 178,900 (6.9%)
In the same period, the main citizenship of persons issued first residence permits in the EU were:
- Ukraine: 499,992 (19.2%)
- United States: 261,760 (10.0%)
- China[1]: 167,118 (6.4%)
- India:135,514 (5.2%)
- Syria: 104,1134 (4.0%)
- Morocco: 96,099 (3.7%)
Ireland
A total of 38,433 first residence permits were issued to non-EU citizens in Ireland in 2015.
More than half (57.4%) of these permits were issued for education reasons.
In 2015, the total number of first residence permits issued by reason in Ireland were:
- Family: 3,444 (9.0% of total number of permits issued)
- Education: 22,075 (57.4%)
- Employment: 6,073 (15.8%)
- Other: 6,841 (17.8%)
The main citizenship of persons issued first residence permits, in the same period, were:
- Brazil:10,955 (28.5%)
- India: 2,883 (7.5%)
- United States: 2,690 (7.0%)
- China[1]: 2,291 (6.0%)
- Pakistan: 1,891 (4.9%)
For more information:
See: Eurostat Residence permits statistics (October 2016)
[1] Including Hong Kong
