Migrants: Istat says the Italian population is only holding steady thanks to foreigners. A boom in arrivals from Morocco

The decline from Latin America (-15.7 per cent) is the first measurable impact of regulatory changes: the tightening of the ius sanguinis rule (Decree-Law 36/2025, converted into Law 74/2025) has reduced the automatic granting of citizenship by descent, particularly for people of Italian descent in Brazil and Argentina.

The section on out-migration reveals the most striking and insidious figure: the number of Italians moving abroad has plummeted to 109,000, 22.7 per cent lower than the peak of 141,000 recorded in 2024. However, that peak was the result of new penalties for failure to register with AIRE – ranging from 200 to 1,000 euros for each year of delay, introduced by Law 213/2023 – which had prompted thousands of Italians already living abroad to regularise their registration status. The return to 109,000 is not a reversal: it brings the annual outflow back into the range seen over the last ten years, between 94,000 and 122,000 per year. The statistical bubble has burst; the exodus has not.

The historical data series measures the actual loss. Between 2015 and 2025, 1,249,000 Italian citizens emigrated and 607,000 returned: a net loss of 642,000 people, the equivalent of a city the size of Palermo. Over the same period, the net inflow of foreign nationals stood at 2.78 million. This is not a one-off blip, but a slow and structural shift, confirmed by one population register after another.

33.9 per cent of expatriates – 37,000 out of 109,000 – are Italian citizens born abroad. Migration flows to Brazil and Argentina consist almost entirely of those born abroad (95.2 per cent and 96 per cent): this mobility is linked to the acquisition of citizenship and the re-establishment of ties with the country of origin. But there is also the reverse phenomenon: naturalised citizens who use their Italian passport as a springboard for mobility within Europe. Among expatriates born in Africa, 43.9 per cent choose France; among those born in Asia, 59.9 per cent go to the United Kingdom.

The ranking of destinations is also changing, but by subtraction. Spain has become the top destination for Italian expats (12.2 per cent), not because it is more attractive – migration flows to Madrid and the surrounding area have fallen by 22.3 per cent – but because the UK (-38.5 per cent) and Germany (-36.8 per cent) have seen a sharp decline.

Between 2019 and 2025, the South lost 150,000 Italian university graduates aged between 25 and 34. The biggest factor is not emigration abroad (-28,000) but the rest of Italia: -122,000 to the Centre-North, more than four times as many. Southern human capital flows to Milan before it flows to London.

The North is following the opposite trend: it is losing 49,000 graduates to other countries but is gaining 108,000 from the South, resulting in a net gain of 59,000. Lombardy leads the way with a net gain of 40,000; at the other end of the scale is Campania, which has lost 42,000 young graduates due to outflow both within the country (-34,000) and abroad (-8,000). One region trains them, the other employs them.

At national level, the overall figure for graduates for the period 2019–2024 remains positive by the narrowest of margins – just under 10,000 – solely thanks to the 88,000 additional young foreign graduates, who offset the 78,000 fewer Italian graduates. However, Istat makes one point clear: regarding the foreign graduates’ qualifications, neither the field of study, the country in which they were obtained, nor their relevance to the employment subsequently undertaken in Italia is known.

The balance between the South and the Centre-North remains in the red in terms of overall figures too: 112,000 people leaving compared with 67,000 arriving, resulting in a net loss of 45,000 residents in a year. Calabria tops the emigration rankings with almost eight departures per thousand inhabitants; Crotone, at 9.5 per thousand, is the province with the highest emigration rate.

Residence transfers between municipalities are on the rise again: 1,455,000 in 2025, up 5.1 per cent on the previous year. However, this growth is not evenly distributed: moves by foreign nationals rose by 14.8 per cent, whilst those by Italians rose by 3 per cent. As a result, foreign nationals account for 19.5 per cent of internal mobility, despite representing just 9.4 per cent of the resident population (a rate twice as high, confirming them as the most geographically flexible segment of the labour market).

The trends remain unchanged: Emilia-Romagna remains the most attractive region (+2.1 per thousand), with Pavia the province with the highest growth (+5.3). At the other end of the scale are Basilicata (-5.5) and Calabria (-3.8), with Matera bringing up the rear among the provinces (-6.3).

The 2025 figures are provisional: the final figures will be confirmed once they have been reconciled with the Permanent Census. But the picture is already clear. The Italia on the move is becoming increasingly foreign; and those who leave are, more and more often, Italian by passport rather than by background.