Cyprus is one of three EU member states in which the percentage of residents that are citizens of other countries – both from the bloc as well as from third states – is higher than 10%, according to Eurostat.
The other two countries are Luxembourg and Malta, the data released on Wednesday by the European Union’s statistical service also shows.
At the same time, Cyprus is one of a few countries where the percentage of residents that are citizens of another EU member state is higher than the percentage of residents from non-EU countries.
According to the data, 11% of the residents of Cyprus were citizens of other EU member states, while 8% of residents were citizens of non-EU countries.
Overall in the European Union, 5% of residents were citizens of a non-EU country, which in absolute numbers corresponded to 23.7 million people.
The average of EU citizens living in one of the EU member states with the citizenship of another EU member states was 4%, which corresponds to a total of 13.7 million people.
The largest numbers of non-nationals living in the EU Member States were recorded in Germany (10.6 million people), Spain (5.4 million), France and Italy (both 5.2 million).
Non-nationals in these four Member States collectively represented 70.3% of the total number of non-nationals living in all EU Member States.
In relative terms, the EU Member State with the highest share of non-national citizens was Luxembourg (47% of its total population). Out of these, 38% came from a member state and 9% from a non-EU country.
A high proportion of non-nationals was also observed in Malta (8% EU citizens, 12% non-EU citizens, 20% total), Cyprus (11% plus 8%, 19% total), Austria (9% plus 8%, 17% total), Estonia (2% plus 14%, 16% total), Latvia (0% plus 13%, 13% total), Ireland (7% plus 6%, 13% total), Germany (5% plus 7%, 12% total), Belgium (8% plus 4%, 12% total) and Spain (4% plus 8%, 12% total).
In contrast, non-nationals represented less than 1% of the population in Romania. This percentage was around 1% in Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, at 2% in Hungary and at 3% in Croatia and Lithuania.
In most EU Member States, the majority of non-nationals were citizens of non-EU countries. Only in Luxembourg, Cyprus, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovakia were non-nationals mainly citizens of another EU Member State.
Romanian, Polish, Italian and Portuguese citizens were the four main groups of EU citizens living in other EU Member States on 1 January 2021.
