Libyans, Serbians and Russians top citizenship list granted residence permits by Malta

A total of 9,984 first residence permits were issued by Malta last year during 2015, the majority of which were granted to citizens from Libya, Serbia and Russia.

Data released by the European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat, shows that the residence permits – issued for at least three months to non-EU citizens – were granted mostly for employment reasons (2,782 or 27.9%), other reasons (2,713 or 27.2%), education reasons (2,346 or 23.5%) and family reasons (2,143 or 21.5%).

The data shows that Libyans (2,147) amounted to 21.5% of the total permits issued, followed by people from Serbia (920) and Russia (902).

In population terms, Malta – with a population of just over 420,000 – issued the highest rates of first resident permits as 23 permits per thousand population.

Across the 28 member states, 2.6 million first residence permits were issued in the European Union to non-EU citizens – a record number since the data collection began in 2008.

“This increase was mainly due to the higher number of first permits issued for employment reasons,” Eurostat said.

“Accounting for 28.9% of all first residence permits issued in the EU in 2015, family remained the main reason of deliverance, followed by employment (27.2%), other reasons (23.8%) and education (20.2%).”

In 2015, one out of four first residence permits was issued in the United Kingdom (633,000 residence permits issued, or 24.3% of total permits issued in the EU) and one in five in Poland (541,600, or 20.8%). They were followed by France (226,600, or 8.7%), Germany (194,800, or 7.5%), Spain (192,900, or 7.4%) and Italy (178,900, or 6.9%).

After Malta, Cyprus (18.4), Poland (14.3) Sweden (11.3) and the United Kingdom (9.7) issued the highest rate of such permits compared with their population.

In 2015, 5.1 first residence permits were issued per thousand population in the EU.

Poland (375,300 permits, or 53% of all permits issued for employment reasons in the EU in 2015) was by far the first destination for employment related permits, while the United Kingdom (229,100 permits, or 44%) was the primary destination in the EU for education related reasons. With over 100 000 permits each, Germany (133,900, or 18%), Italy (109,300, or 15%) and Spain (102,500, or 14%) were the three Member States with the highest number of permits issued for family reasons in 2015. They were closely followed by France (92,500, or 12%) and the United Kingdom (89 900, or 12%).

In 15 Member States, the largest numbers of permits were issued for family reasons, with the highest shares observed in Germany (68.7% of all residence permits issued in the Member State), Italy (61.1%), Luxembourg (57.1%), Croatia (53.9%), Spain (53.1%), Belgium (52.3%) and Greece (51.2%). Education was the main reason in Ireland (57.4% of all residence permits issued in the Member State), Romania (38.7%), the United Kingdom (36.2%) and Hungary (28.3%). In six Member States, the main reason for issuing residence permits was employment, the highest shares being recorded in Poland (69.3% of all residence permits issued in the Member State), Lithuania (53.9%), Slovenia (47.5%) and Cyprus (47.1%).

In 2015, citizens of Ukraine (500,000 beneficiaries, or 19.2% of the total number of first residence permits issued in the EU) continued to receive the highest number of permits, ahead of citizens of the United States (261,800, or 10.0%), China (167,100, or 6.4%), India (135,500, or 5.2%), Syria (104,100, or 4.0%) and Morocco (96,100, or 3.7%). Around half of all first residence permits issued in the EU in 2015 were issued to citizens of these six countries.

The reasons for residence permits being issued differ between citizenships. Among the top 10 citizenships granted permits in the EU in 2015, Ukrainians benefited from residence permits mainly for employment reasons (75.2% of the first residence permits issued to Ukrainians in 2015). Chinese (61.2%) and Brazilians (42.7%) were given residence permits mainly for education reasons, while Moroccans (70.5%) benefited from residence permits issued mainly for family reasons, as did Turks (50.4%).

Certain citizenships were granted residence permits predominantly by particular Member States. Of the half million Ukrainians granted residence permits in the EU in 2015, 86% were recorded in Poland (430,100). Of the 261,800 US citizens granted residence permits, more than three-quarters (77%) were registered in the United Kingdom, as were almost half (48%) of the 167,100 Chinese.