Foreign-born population as a share of residents
- Eurostat dataset
- migr_pop3ctb
- Reference period
- 2025
- Unit of measure
- persons
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2025): 64 719 037 persons.
- Highest value: Germany at 17 153 545 persons; lowest: Liechtenstein at 28 702 persons.
- Cross-country mean 2 272 789 persons, standard deviation 3 660 122, coefficient of variation 161.0% across 31 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2014→2025: +49.5% on a constant panel of 30 countries.
How large is Europe's foreign-born population? Eurostat dataset migr_pop3ctb reports foreign-born population as a share of residents for 31 reporting countries, with 2025 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 64 719 037 persons. The foreign-born share is the denominator for every integration outcome indicator.
The five highest values in 2025 are recorded by Germany (17 153 545), France (9 633 730), Spain (9 464 210), Italy (6 928 045), Netherlands (3 025 656), all expressed in persons. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Liechtenstein (28 702), Iceland (85 012), Malta (183 765), Latvia (215 606), Slovakia (215 941). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 597.64, while the median country reports 940 259 persons against a mean of 2 272 789 persons.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 3 660 122 persons, giving a coefficient of variation of 161.0%. The mean sits above the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the upper tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2014 and 2025 the summed value across the 30 countries reporting in both periods moved by +49.5%. The largest relative increases are observed in Romania (+454.8%), Malta (+317.5%), Czechia (+176.6%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Latvia (-20.5%), Greece (-10.1%), Croatia (-2.1%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
This indicator has no normatively preferred direction; its analytical value lies in the structure of the distribution and in how national positions move relative to each other over time. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset migr_pop3ctb ('Population on 1 January by age group, sex and country of birth'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-07-09. Filter dimensions: age=TOTAL; sex=T; c_birth=FOR. Unit of measure: persons. Reference period: 2025. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (31 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.