Foreigners make up 6.4% of EU population

By 1st January 2009, 31.9 million foreign citizens were living in the 27 EU Member States (EU27), of which 11.9 million were citizens of another EU27 Member State. The remaining were citizens of countries outside the EU27, in particular from other European countries (7.2 million), Africa (4.9 million), Asia (4.0 million) and the American continent (3.3 million). Foreign citizens accounted for 6.4% of the total EU27 population, a report by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union shows.

In 2009, the largest numbers of foreign citizens were recorded in Germany (7.2 million persons), Spain (5.7 million), the United Kingdom (4.0 million in 2008), Italy (3.9 million) and France (3.7 million). More than 75% of the foreign citizens in the EU27 lived in these Member States.

Among the EU27 Member States, the highest percentage of foreign citizens in the population was observed in Luxembourg (44% of the total population), followed by Latvia (18%), Cyprus and Estonia (both 16%), Spain (12%), Ireland (11%) and Austria (10%). The percentage of foreign citizens was 1% or less in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

In 2009, 37% of the foreign citizens living in the EU27 were citizens of another EU27 Member State. The largest groups were from Romania (2.0 million or 6% of the total number of foreign citizens in the EU27), Poland (1.5 million or 5%), Italy (1.3 million or 4%) and Portugal (1.0 million or 3%). Among the citizens of countries outside the EU27, the largest groups were from Turkey (2.4 million or 8% of the total number of foreign citizens in the EU27), Morocco (1.8 million or 6%) and Albania (1.0 million or 3%).

On average in 2009, foreign citizens living in the EU27 were significantly younger than the population of nationals (median age 34.3 years compared with 41.2 years). This was true in all Member States except Estonia, Latvia and Poland. The largest differences were recorded in Italy (32.3 compared with 43.9), Finland (33.0 compared with 42.1) and Denmark (32.1 compared with 41.0).

Amongst foreign citizens, those from countries outside the EU27 were younger than those from other EU27 Member States (median age 33.0 years compared with 36.9 years).