Immigrants: 3.82 million permits in Europe

There are 3.82 million residence permits issued in 2025 by EU countries to non-EU citizens. Compared with 2019, this represents an increase of almost 28 per cent. A third of the permits (1.26 million) are linked for work purposes, with the proportion varying across countries, partly depending on the maturity and intensity of migration flows, whilst 28.3 per cent are issued for family reasons (for example, for family reunification).

If the figures are put into perspective in relation to the population, it emerges that the average rate of new work permits issued per thousand inhabitants is 8.5 (far surpassed by Portugal, at 28.9), whilst the rate for work permits is 2.8 (exceeded by Cyprus, Portugal and the countries of Eastern Europe). These are some of the figures compiled by the Leone Moressa Foundation ahead of the forthcoming Report on the Economics of Immigration, which Monday’s edition of *Il Sole 24 Ore* is able to preview.

The number of new residence permits issued in the EU to non-EU citizens for work purposes has consistently exceeded one million in recent years, with the exception of 2020 – the year of the Covid-19 pandemic – when the figure stood at 930,000. In Eastern European countries, the proportion of immigrants arriving to find work is clearly the highest: work permits account for 93 per cent in Croatia and exceed 70 per cent in Romania, Portugal and Lithuania. The proportion exceeds 50 per cent in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Cyprus and Bulgaria.

At the other end of the scale are some of the larger countries in Western Europe: in France work permits account for 13.5 per cent, in Italia 13.2 per cent, in Austria 12.8 per cent and in Belgium 10 per cent. The gap compared with the EU average can be partly explained by the fact that migration to these countries has a longer history, and that foreigners who arrived in the past to find work are subsequently joined by their families. It should also be noted that the proportion of work permits issued does not correspond to the total number of non-EU citizens who are actually permitted to work in the EU: even those who entered Europe on a family-reunification permit or for international protection.

The total number of residence permits issued in Italia in 2025 was 433,000, an increase of over 80 per cent compared with the 238,000 issued in 2019. The main route of entry remains family reunification (40.8 per cent of permits), followed by asylum and other grounds (37.5 per cent). As mentioned, work accounts for 13.2 per cent, with 57,362 permits. The increase in quotas for the entry of non-European workers, introduced by the latest immigration decrees with effect from 2023, has not yet fully manifested itself in terms of an actual rise in the number of permits issued, partly due to the length of the procedures involved in moving from the ‘click days’ to the actual issue of the residence permit.