One in nine Cyprus residents is foreign
The percentage of residents who are citizens of other countries living in Cyprus, both from European Union member-states and non-EU countries, is higher than 10%, putting the country in third place after Luxembourg and Malta in the list of EU countries that have a high percentage of immigrants based on population, according to a report released on Thursday by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical service.
However, Cyprus is one of a few countries where the percentage of residents who are citizens of another EU member-state is higher than the percentage of residents from non-EU countries.
On January 1, 2021, 11% of the residents of Cyprus were citizens of other EU member-states, while 8% of residents were citizens of non-EU countries.
Overall in the European Union, 5% of residents were citizens of a non-EU country, which in absolute numbers corresponded to 23.7 million people.
The average number of EU citizens living in an EU country while holding citizenship of another EU member-state was 4%, which corresponds to a total of 13.7 million people.
The largest numbers of non-nationals living in EU member-states were recorded in Germany (10.6 million), Spain (5.4 million), France and Italy (both 5.2 million). Non-nationals in these four member-states collectively represented 70.3% of the total number of non-nationals living in all EU member-states.
In relative terms, the EU country with the highest share of non-national citizens was Luxembourg (47% of its total population). Out of this percentage, 38% came from an EU member-state and 9% from a third country.
A high proportion of non-nationals was also observed in Malta (8% EU citizens, 12% non-EU citizens, 20% total), Cyprus (11% plus 8%, 19% total), and Austria (9% plus 8%, 17% total).
In contrast, non-nationals represented less than 1% of the population in Romania. This percentage was around 1% in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, 2% in Hungary and 3% in Croatia and Lithuania.
In most EU member-states, the majority of non-nationals were citizens of non-EU countries. Only in Luxembourg, Cyprus, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovakia were non-nationals mainly citizens of another EU state.
