Migration / Sources and method
Every figure in this section is official and published by a statistical authority. Pollytic copies it, shows it and links to it; it estimates nothing and fills no gap.
European countries come from Eurostat, which collects the figures of the national statistical offices of the EU and EFTA on common definitions. The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom come from the OECD International Migration Database, on each country’s own definitions, so they compare less exactly; their population is the World Bank’s. Where the statistical office of one of those countries publishes a series itself in a form a program can read, its figure is used instead of the OECD’s: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Statistics Canada, U.S. Census Bureau, Office for National Statistics today. Each entry below says which.
Rates use the population of the same year, or the latest year published before it: flows per 1,000 inhabitants, foreign populations and births as a percentage of the total.
The sources are checked once a month. A new period appears under “Latest data” within a month of its publication; between checks the figures on these pages do not change. When a source revises a past figure, the revised figure replaces it.
Sources flag some figures: provisional, break in series, estimated, definition differs. Flagged periods are listed on each country page.
Net migration plus statistical adjustment: the change in population that births and deaths do not explain. Positive means more people arrived than left.
It is a residual, so it also absorbs corrections to the population count.
Australia: Net overseas migration in the calendar year: arrivals minus departures of people who stay in, or away from, Australia for 12 months or more over a 16-month period, whatever their citizenship.
Canada: Net international migration in the year ending 30 June, added up from Statistics Canada's own components: immigrants, minus net emigration, plus the net change in non-permanent residents.
United Kingdom: Long-term net migration in the calendar year: immigration minus emigration of people moving for 12 months or more, whatever their nationality. Recent years are provisional and are revised.
United States: Net international migration in the year ending 30 June, from the Census Bureau's population estimates: everyone who moved to the United States minus everyone who left, whatever their citizenship or legal status. An estimate; the years since the last census are revised with each annual release, and each earlier decade keeps the estimates made before the following census. No estimate covers a full year for 2010.
People who moved to the country in the year intending to stay at least twelve months, whatever their citizenship. Returning nationals are included. For the United States and New Zealand the figure is the OECD's and counts foreign citizens only, on each country's own definition.
Australia: Overseas migrant arrivals in the calendar year: people who stay in Australia for 12 months or more over a 16-month period, whatever their citizenship.
Canada: Immigrants in the year ending 30 June: people granted permanent residence. Temporary residents (workers, students, asylum claimants) are not included; Statistics Canada counts them separately as non-permanent residents.
United Kingdom: Long-term immigration in the calendar year: people arriving to stay 12 months or more, whatever their nationality. Recent years are provisional and are revised.
People who left the country in the year intending to stay abroad at least twelve months, whatever their citizenship. For the United States and New Zealand the figure is the OECD's and counts foreign citizens only, on each country's own definition.
Departures are harder to record than arrivals: few countries require people to deregister.
Australia: Overseas migrant departures in the calendar year: people who stay away from Australia for 12 months or more over a 16-month period, whatever their citizenship.
Canada: Emigrants in the year ending 30 June: people who left Canada to settle abroad. An estimate, since Canada does not record departures.
United Kingdom: Long-term emigration in the calendar year: people leaving for 12 months or more, whatever their nationality. Recent years are provisional and are revised.
Residents on 1 January who do not hold the citizenship of the country they live in, by citizenship.
People who naturalise leave this count, so it is lower where more residents naturalise. Counted as all residents minus nationals, so stateless people and people of unknown citizenship are included. For the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom the figure is the OECD's or the national statistical office's, on each country's own definition; each country page names its source.
United States: Residents who are not U.S. citizens. From the American Community Survey: a yearly sample of households, so each figure is an estimate with a margin of error. No estimates were published for 2020.
Residents on 1 January who were born in another country, by country of birth, whatever their citizenship today.
For the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom the figure is the OECD's or the national statistical office's, on each country's own definition; each country page names its source.
Australia: Estimated resident population at 30 June, by country of birth.
United States: Residents born outside the United States and its territories to parents who were not U.S. citizens, by country of birth. From the American Community Survey: a yearly sample of households, so each figure is an estimate with a margin of error. No estimates were published for 2020.
Residents on 1 January who were born in another country, by age group.
Children born in the country to immigrant parents are not foreign-born, so the youngest group is small by construction.
Australia: Estimated resident population at 30 June: all residents minus those born in Australia, by age group.
United States: The foreign-born population by age group. From the American Community Survey: a yearly sample of households, so each figure is an estimate with a margin of error. No estimates were published for 2020.
Residents on 1 January who were born in another country, by sex.
Australia: Estimated resident population at 30 June: all residents minus those born in Australia, by sex.
United States: The foreign-born population by sex. From the American Community Survey: a yearly sample of households, so each figure is an estimate with a margin of error. No estimates were published for 2020.
People in employment as a percentage of all residents aged 20 to 64, for those born abroad and for those born in the country. From the EU Labour Force Survey.
A survey estimate, less precise for small groups; Eurostat withholds the figures it considers unreliable.
Unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force (those working or looking for work) aged 15 to 74, for those born abroad and for those born in the country. From the EU Labour Force Survey.
A survey estimate, less precise for small groups; Eurostat withholds the figures it considers unreliable.
Live births in the year by whether the mother was born in the country or abroad.
No harmonised series records the origin of both parents; this is the closest official measure of children of immigrant parents.
Live births in the year by whether the mother held the citizenship of the country or a foreign one.
Residence permits issued for the first time to citizens of countries outside the EU, by reason: family, education, employment or other.
Citizens of EU and EFTA countries need no permit and are not counted.
Residents who acquired the citizenship of the country in the year, by their former citizenship.
For the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom the figure is the OECD's or the national statistical office's, on each country's own definition; each country page names its source.
People who lodged an application for international protection in the year, first-time and repeated, by citizenship.
An application is not a decision; decisions are published separately. For the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom the figure is the OECD's or the national statistical office's, on each country's own definition; each country page names its source.
First-instance decisions on applications for international protection taken in the year, by outcome: refugee status, subsidiary protection, humanitarian status under national law, or rejection.
A decision often concerns an application lodged in an earlier year. A rejection can be appealed, and decisions on appeal are published separately. Eurostat rounds asylum figures to the nearest five, so the parts may not add up to the total.
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors: under 18 and without an adult responsible for them, by citizenship.
The age is the one the authorities accepted, sometimes after an age assessment.
People who lodged an application for international protection in the month, first-time and repeated.
Recent months are provisional and are revised. Published by Eurostat for European countries only.
People who fled Ukraine and held temporary protection in the country at the end of the month. The EU activated the status in March 2022.
A count of people holding the status, not of arrivals: the same person is counted every month. Published by Eurostat for European countries only.
Citizens of countries outside the EU whom the authorities found in the country without the right to be there: they had entered without authorisation, had stayed after a visa or permit ran out, or had lost the right to stay for another reason. By citizenship.
How it is obtained: each country's police, border and immigration authorities record the cases in their own registers and report the yearly count to Eurostat, as EU Regulation 862/2007 on migration statistics requires. Eurostat rounds the figures to the nearest five. It counts what the authorities detect, not how many people live in the country without authorisation: a country that checks more finds more, and many people are never found. No harmonised official count of irregular residents exists; estimates of it come from researchers, not from statistical offices, and are not shown here.
Citizens of countries outside the EU refused entry at the country's external border, at a land, sea or air crossing point, because they did not meet the conditions of entry: no valid visa or travel document, a false document, no proof of the purpose of the stay or of the means to pay for it, an entry ban, or another reason. By citizenship.
How it is obtained: each country's police, border and immigration authorities record the cases in their own registers and report the yearly count to Eurostat, as EU Regulation 862/2007 on migration statistics requires. Eurostat rounds the figures to the nearest five. Only external borders are counted, so countries on the outer land border of the EU report many more refusals than countries whose only external borders are airports and ports. A refusal is a decision taken at a crossing point: people who cross elsewhere are not in this count.
Citizens of countries outside the EU found to be staying without authorisation and issued an administrative or judicial decision obliging them to leave, by citizenship.
One person can receive more than one order, and an order does not mean the person left.
Citizens of countries outside the EU who left the country after an order to leave, whether by force or voluntarily, by citizenship.
A departure the authorities did not record is not counted. A return often follows an order issued in an earlier year, so dividing one series by the other for the same year does not give a return rate.
Eurostat publishes four of these series for the regions of its countries (NUTS 2: in Spain the autonomous communities, in Germany the government regions). Each country page shows them in a table. Everything else on these pages is published for the whole country only, and countries that are a single region have no table.
Net migration. Net migration plus statistical adjustment of the region in the year, in people and per 1,000 inhabitants (Eurostat's own crude rate). For a region it counts moves to and from the rest of the country as well as from abroad. Eurostat, demo_r_gind3
Born abroad. Residents aged 15 and over in private households who were born in another country, as a share of all residents of that age. From the EU Labour Force Survey: an estimate, which Eurostat withholds for regions where the sample is too small. Eurostat, lfst_r_lfsd2pwc
Foreign citizens. Residents aged 15 and over in private households who do not hold the citizenship of the country, as a share of all residents of that age. From the EU Labour Force Survey: an estimate, which Eurostat withholds for regions where the sample is too small. Eurostat, lfst_r_lfsd2pwn
Employment rate. People in employment as a percentage of residents aged 20 to 64, for those born abroad and for those born in the country. From the EU Labour Force Survey: an estimate, which Eurostat withholds for regions where the sample is too small. Eurostat, lfst_r_lfe2emprc
The regional shares of residents born abroad and of foreign citizens come from a survey of people aged 15 and over, so they differ from the country’s figure, which counts every resident from population registers.