First residence permits issued in EU up by 10% in 2025

In 2025, EU countries issued 3.9 million first residence permits to non-EU citizens, a 10.1% increase (+355 350) compared with 2024.

Employment was the main reason for issuing new permits in the EU, accounting for approximately one-third of all first residence permits issued in 2025 (1.3 million or 33.6%). Family reasons were the second most common, with 1.1 million first permits (28.1%), followed by other reasons, including international protection (0.9 million or 22.8%). The remaining first permits were issued for education-related reasons (0.6 million; 15.5%).

Compared with 2024, employment-related first permits increased by 16.1%, first permits for family reasons by 14.1% and those for education by 9.0%. Other reasons, including international protection, were the only category in which the number of first permits fell (-0.9%).

This article presents data on first residence permits published by Eurostat, complemented by data on the stock of valid residence permits at the end of the year. It presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained articles on first residence permits issued during the year and the Statistics Explained article on stock of permits at the end of the year.

Source dataset: migr_resfirst

Ukrainian citizens were granted 335 100 first residence permits

In 2025, citizens of Ukraine (335 100), India (227 600) and Morocco (202 100) received the highest number of first residence permits.

Source dataset: migr_resfirst

At the end of 2025, there were in total 27.8 million valid residence permits granted to non-EU citizens. Family reunification was the main reason, accounting for 32.4% of all permits. Moroccan citizens held the highest number of permits at the end of 2025 (2.2 million), followed by Turkish citizens (2.0 million) and Ukrainian citizens (1.7 million).