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Law in Charts · Migration and asylum

First residence permits for work per 100,000 inhabitants

How many first residence permits for employment reasons did each European country issue, for its population?

32 of 32 shown in the list

first permits per 100,000 inhabitants

  1. Malta2,837 2025
  2. Cyprus2,560 2025
  3. Portugal2,238 2025
  4. Lithuania1,454 2025
  5. Croatia1,223 2025
  6. Poland872 2025
  7. Slovenia655 2025
  8. Hungary509 2025
  9. Serbia363 2025
  10. Romania320 2025
  11. Ireland308 2025
  12. Luxembourg283 2025
  13. Denmark270 2025
  14. Slovakia245 2025
  15. Spain234 2025
  16. Latvia223 2025
  17. Liechtenstein220 2025
  18. Bulgaria196 2025
  19. Finland163 2025
  20. Czechia163 2025
  21. Norway143 2025
  22. Switzerland139 2025
  23. Germany129 2025
  24. Iceland118 2025
  25. Greece116 2025

Source: Eurostat, First permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship (migr_resfirst) and population on 1 January (demo_pjan). Data for 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 32 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Malta at 2,837 (2025) and the lowest is Belgium at 62 (2025).
  • The middle value (the median) is 222.

What it counts

First residence permits issued to people from outside the country's citizen group for employment reasons and valid for at least three months, divided by the population on 1 January and multiplied by 100,000, in the latest year each country reports (since 2021).

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

A permit is counted when it is first issued to a person, not renewed, and free-movement citizens of the European Union do not need one. Countries differ in what they grant a permit for and in how long it lasts, and a country that issues many short permits can show a high figure. The figure counts permits, not people who stayed.

Source

Eurostat: First permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship (migr_resfirst) and population on 1 January (demo_pjan). Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). First residence permits for work per 100,000 inhabitants [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/employment-permits-per-100000. Data: Eurostat, First permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship (migr_resfirst) and population on 1 January (demo_pjan), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_resfirst/default/table (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/employment-permits-per-100000). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{employmentpermitsper1000002026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {First residence permits for work per 100,000 inhabitants},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/employment-permits-per-100000},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, First permits by reason, length of validity and citizenship (migr_resfirst) and population on 1 January (demo_pjan), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_resfirst/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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