Last year, the largest number of permits for residency in the EU were given to Ukrainians

This was reported by the EU statistical agency Eurostat.

Last year, Ukrainians received almost 500 thousand of such permits – or 19% of the total amount in the EU.

This statistic includes people who received such permits for the first time. The citizens of the US and China ranked second and third. Syrians are fifth, Belarusians (82 thousand) and Russians (73.5 thousand) are seventh and eighth.

75% of Ukrainians received residence permits in connection with work. 6% – due to studying in the EU, or for family reasons.

Ukrainians go mainly to Poland, 86% of residence permits issued to Ukrainians are registered in this country.

Overall, in 2015, the largest number of residence permits to foreigners were issued by the United Kingdom (nearly a quarter), Poland and France. Germany, Spain and Italy are also popular.

In total, EU countries issued 2.6 million permits in 2015.