Less Non-EU students came to the EU to study in 2020.  Photo: Shutterstock

Less Non-EU students came to the EU to study in 2020.  Photo: Shutterstock

In 2020, Luxembourg awarded first residence permits to 5,706 non-EU citizens. The country follows a European-wide trend that saw numbers strongly decline in comparison to 2019, where 8,428 permits were granted.

Indian citizens made up the majority of those permits in Luxembourg (520), as they had

“The dip in first residence permits was mainly due to the covid-19 pandemic and the related travel and administrative restrictions imposed by the national authorities,” says the

Following Indian citizens, Eritreans (398), Brazilians (327), US Americans (319) and Chinese nationals (309) were granted the most permits last year. Though the residency reason isn’t detailed for each EU country in the study, generally, 4 in 10 non-EU citizens moved to the EU for employment. Due to the pandemic, 38% less students came to Europe to seek education.

Poland, with 26% of total permits in the EU, led the chart in 2020. This was largely due to Poland issuing more than 488,000 residence permits to Ukrainian nationals, out of a total of 598,047 permits. Germany (14%) and Spain (14%) placed second. The only country that saw a rise in first residence permit distribution was Lithuania (5%).