The number of immigrants residing in the European Union climbed to a record high of 64.2 million in 2025, up about 2.1 million from a year earlier, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Center for Research and Analysis on Migration at RFBerlin.
The figure compares with 40 million in 2010, the report said, citing Eurostat and U.N. Refugee Agency data.
Germany remained the bloc’s biggest host of foreign-born people at nearly 18 million, 72% of them of working age, while Spain posted the fastest recent growth, adding about 700,000 to bring its foreign-born population to 9.5 million.
“Germany remains the main destination for migrants in Europe, both in absolute terms and, to a significant extent, relative to its population,” said Tommaso Frattini, one of the authors of the report.
The study said migration patterns were uneven across the bloc, with Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus facing higher shares of immigrants relative to their population size.
Asylum claims were also concentrated in certain countries, with Spain, Italy, France and Germany accounting for nearly three-quarters of all applications. Germany hosted the largest number of refugees overall, at 2.7 million.
© Thomson Reuters 2026.
