Immigration in the EU has reached historically high levels

The amount of foreign-born individuals in the EU has skyrocketed over the past 15 years, going from around 40 million in 2010 to over 64 million in 2025. Foreign-born population across the EU increased by some 2.1 million between 2024-2025, an amount that, while slightly bellow the 2.6 million increase documented between 2024 and 2024, is still “high by historical standards.”

Germany remains the main destination for migrants, going from 10 million foreign-born in 2018 to nearly 18 million by 2025. While Germany remains in the lead, Spain — whose socialist government is presently amid a process to grant mass amnesty to half a million illegal migrants — is the European country with the fastest growth in migrant population in recent years, adding roughly 700,000 more foreign-born residents during 2025 alone for a total of of some 9.5 million. Spain alone accounted for roughly a third of the entire foreign-born population growth in the EU during 2025.

In Germany, 53 percent of all first-instance asylum applicants came from Afghanistan, Syria, and Turkey. In Spain, 60 percent came from Venezuela, and 11 percent from Mali. In Italy, roughly half of all applicants are nationals from Bangladesh, Peru, Egypt, and Pakistan, while in France the composition is more spread, with nationals of Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, and Haiti as the top four countries of origin, collectively representing 36 percent of the total.