--- title: International Migrants description: With the massive increase in refugee flows since 2015, the question of how fair the distribution of refugees is and which country takes in how many has been canonical: https://www.datapulse.de/en/international-migrants/ author: Maria Fernandez published: 2025-09-09T14:03:31+00:00 modified: 2026-10-01T11:55:47+00:00 section: Miscellaneous language: en-US publisher: DataPulse Research image: https://www.datapulse.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/International-migrants_EN-819x1024.png --- # International Migrants With the massive increase in refugee flows since 2015, the question of how fair the distribution of refugees is and which country takes in how many has been raised time and again in the EU. However, when looking at the ‘proportion of foreigners’ in each country, one aspect is often forgotten: Not all foreign citizens are refugees, but come to the respective host country for professional reasons, for example, and many move within the EU. The focus must therefore be on the proportion of EU citizens living in other EU countries compared to the proportion of non-EU citizens. ## Special sectors attract people from abroad Luxembourg is the most colourful example. The banking centre attracts many bankers from the EU, who have migrated to Luxembourg for professional reasons. Employees of UBS or J.P. Morgan may not come from the EU, but Switzerland and England are not considered unsafe countries of origin. People from there cannot be categorised as refugees. The number of asylum applications made in Luxembourg helps to clarify this picture of different rates. In 2024, there were 1,836 out of a total population of 666,000. Of these applications, 493 were rejected (source: laenderdaten.info). However, the opposite is true for Malta, even though there has been a strong influx of European workers in recent years. The reason for this lies in the gambling and sports betting industry, which operates its online activities from Malta. The Malta Gambling Authority takes a much more relaxed view of many aspects of the betting and gambling business than the rest of the EU. However, this is offset by the fact that Malta is one of the most important ports of call for boat refugees due to its geographical location. The 158,000 external EU citizens were offset by around 115,000 non-EU citizens in 2024. ## Germany: Non-EU citizens slightly in the majority Let’s take a look at the distribution of foreign citizens in Germany according to origin. The number of immigrants in Germany in 2024 was 16,750,084, which includes recognised refugees but does not take into account people whose asylum application is still pending. This group makes up around 20 per cent of the total population. The proportion of people who do not come from the EU slightly exceeds the proportion of EU citizens by around three per cent (source: laenderdaten.info). ## Eastern European asylum policy reflects in the figures for migrant backgrounds The extent to which the restrictive asylum policy in the eastern and south-eastern part of the European Union is also reflected is shown more clearly in the figures than in our chart. The lowest percentages of foreign nationals in the total population are Slovakia 1.2 % Poland 1.2 % Romania 1.2 % Bulgaria 1.86 % Hungary 2.6 % (source: ec.europa.eu). ## Who is most attracted abroad? The question of which EU countries most people move to other EU countries from is an interesting one. In 2024, we saw Romania at the top with almost three million people, followed by Poland (1.4 million) and Italy (1.3 million). There are actually hardly any surprises in terms of immigration from non-EU countries. Ukraine temporarily led the group with around 2.6 million people due to the war, followed by perennial favourites Turkey (1.7 million) and Morocco (1.5 million) (source: ec.europa.eu). --- Source: https://www.datapulse.de/en/international-migrants/