Cyprus has EU’s second highest share of foreign nationals

At 18% Cyprus has the EU’s second-highest share of foreign citizens behind Luxembourg with 47%, according to Eurostat data published Thursday.

In 2019, 21.8 million citizens of a non-member country lived in one of the 27 EU states, representing almost 5% of the bloc’s population.

There were 13.3 million people living in one of the EU with the citizenship of another Member State, representing almost 3% of the EU population.

In relative terms, the EU country with the highest share of non-nationals was Luxembourg (47%) of its total population.

A high proportion of foreign citizens (10% or more of the resident population) was also observed in Cyprus (18%), Malta (17%), Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

In contrast, non-nationals represented less than 1% of the population in Poland and Romania.

In most EU Member States, the majority of non-nationals were citizens of non-EU countries.