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Press release

Non-EU citizens: presence, new inflows and acquisition of citizenship

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The non-EU foreigners holding a residence permit in Italy on 1st January 2016 were 3,931,133. The most relevant citizenships were: Morocco (510,450), Albania (482,959), China (333,986), Ukraine (240,141) and India (169,394).

The share of long-term permits was continuing to grow. In 2015 they were 2,248,747 and in 2016 they were 2,338,435, representing the largest part of the regular presence (59.5%).

The new inflows of non-EU foreigners are continuing to decline: in 2015 almost 248,000 new permits were issued, nearly 4% fewer than the previous year. The decrease in the new permits has affected more women (-4.8%) than men (-3%). In the period the new permits issued for work decreased strongly both in absolute terms (-35.312) and relative terms (-62%), in 2014 they represented 23%, while in 2015 represent only 9% of the new permits issued.  Instead the permits for asylum and other humanitarian reasons continued to grow both in absolute terms (+19,398) and relative terms: in 2015 represented 28.2% of new inflows, while in the 2014 they were 19.3% and in 2013 were 7.5%.

In 2015 Nigeria, Pakistan and Gambia were the Countries of origin of most of the people with permits issued for asylum and other humanitarian reasons: they represented 43.8% of all permits issued for this reason.

From 2011 to 2015 the acquisitions of citizenship of non-EU citizens increased rapidly: in 2011 they were 50 thousand, in 2015 they were almost 159 thousand. 42% of acquisitions of citizenship in 2015 involved people who had previously the nationality of Morocco (32,448) and Albania (35,134).

From 2014 to 2015 the acquisitions of citizenship for marriage reasons were decreasing: in 2014 they were 14% of total acquisitions of citizenship while in 2015 they represented 9%. This decrease has affected mostly women (from 25% to 16%).

People under 20 years represented 42% of the 2015’s new Italian citizens. The number of acquisitions of citizenship granted to children by transmission and of persons born in Italy to foreign parents who chose Italian citizenship at eighteen years of age increased from about 10 thousand in 2011 to more than 66 thousand in 2015.

For information:

Cinzia Conti
ciconti@istat.it
Ph. +39 0646737366

Reference period: Years 2015-2016

Date of Issue: 29 September 2016

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