The long way home. Most of Romania’s immigrants are Romanians who lived abroad

More than 80 percent of the people who became residents in Romania in 2017 were Romanians who had lived abroad, but their number was overwhelmed by the number of Romanians wo left their country during the same period.

According to fresh Eurostat data, Romania registered 177,435 immigrants in 2017, out of which 146,315, or 82 percent, were Romanians who had previously lived abroad.

Only 9,244 citizens from other EU states and 17,510 citizens from non-EU countries changed their residence in Romania in 2017, being considered new immigrants in the country.

But the number of Romanians who chose to leave their country was much larger. Eurostat data show that 242,200 Romanians left the country in 2017, the 5^th largest number in the EU.

Germany reported the largest total number of immigrants (917,100) in 2017, followed by the United Kingdom (644,200), Spain (532,100), France (370,000) and Italy (343,400).

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“Germany also reported the highest number of emigrants in 2017 (560.7 thousand), followed by Spain (368.9 thousand), the United Kingdom (359.7 thousand), France (312.6 thousand), Romania (242.2 thousand) and Poland (218.5 thousand),” Eurostat said.

A total of 22 of the EU countries reported more immigration than emigration in 2017, but in Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania the number of emigrants outnumbered the number of immigrants, according to EU official data.

More foreigners in Romania

According to a previous Eurostat report, Romania seems more attractive to foreigners from Europe as the number of people with the citizenship of another EU state residing in Romania has grown by almost 3 times during the last 4 years.

The number of people residing in Romania with citizenship of another EU country on January 1, 2018, was 56,750, up from 20,618 in 2014 or 53,543 in 2017.During the same time, the number of people residing in Romania with citizenship of a non-member country was 54,352 last year, down from 60,600 in 2017 – but up from 52,529 in 2014.

Romania also registered last year as residents 299 stateless persons.

In the EU member states, the number of people residing with citizenship of a non-member country on January 1, 2018, was 22.3 million, representing 4.4 percent of the EU population.