The highest rates for emigration in 2017 were reported for Luxembourg (23 emigrants per 1,000 inhabitants), Cyprus (18 per 1,000) and Lithuania (17 per 1 000 persons).

Relative to the size of the resident population, Malta recorded the highest rates of immigration in 2017 (46 immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by Luxembourg (41 immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants), and Cyprus with 24.8.

The statistical service of the EU found that in 2017, 3,956 people with Cypriot citizenship moved to Cyprus, 18.6% of all immigrants, 9,315 or 43.7% from other EU countries and 8,035 or 37.7% from non-EU countries, a total of 21,306 persons.

On January 1, 2018, Belgium, Ireland, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Romania, Slovakia and the UK were the only EU member states where non-nationals were mainly citizens of another member state. This means that in most EU countries, the majority of non-nationals were citizens of non-EU countries.

A total of 22 of the 28 EU member states 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.

The population of Cyprus was reported to be a total of 854,802 at the time of the research, 706,845 Cypriots, 110,646 from other EU countries and 29,738 from non-EU states. Some 7573 were listed as being from unknown countries.

Cyprus has the second highest share of non-nationals in the resident population, 17.3%, though this is far lower than Luxembourg which comes first with 47.8%. In third place is Austria with 15.7%.

Source: Cyprus Mail