EU Migration: immigration in EU member states by citizenship of immigrants 2021

In 2021, Germany, Spain, and France were the countries which saw the highest immigration in the European Union. Germany alone say over 870,000 immigrants entering the country in that year, with a majority coming from non-EU countries. There is significant variation in the make-up of the inflows of migrants in different EU member states, with countries such as Spain and Italy seeing large majorities coming from outside the EU, while France and Germany saw roughly an equal number of migrants coming from other EU countries or being returning citizens of those countries. 

The Netherlands and Belgium stand out as countries which saw more intra-EU migrants than non-EU migrants, with approximately 90,000 and 63,000 moving to these countries respectively from within the EU. Several EU member states saw the greatest share of migrants being citizens of the country themselves, with Romania, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal being notable in this respect. These countries have all seen large flows of people working in other EU member states in recent years, who in many case return to their country of origin within a couple of years.