Nearly two-thirds of the foreigners living in EU Member States are citizens of countries outside the EU-27

In 2011 there were 33.3 million foreign citizens resident in the EU-27, 6.6% of the total population. The majority, 20.5 million, were citizens of non-EU countries, while the remaining 12.8 million were citizens of other EU Member States. Due to better data availability, information on citizenship has often been used to study populations with a foreign background. However, since citizenship can change over time, it is also useful to present information by country of birth. There were 48.9 million foreign-born residents in the EU in 2011, 9.7% of the total population. Of these, 32.4 million were born outside the EU and 16.5 million were born in another EU Member State. Only in Luxembourg, Ireland, Hungary, Cyprus and Malta did foreign-born from other EU countries outnumber those born outside the EU. People born abroad outnumbered foreign citizens in all Member States, except Luxembourg, Latvia and the Czech Republic.

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