Poland has been providing the most residence permits for the fifth consecutive year, with one million of those being issued to immigrants from outside the European Union last year alone.
As per the data from statistical office of the European Union, Poland has issued 967,345 permits in 2021, recording the highest annual figure ever. This represented one-third of all permits issued in the European Union and over two times as many as other European states.
Other nation with the high rates of residence permits were Spain (371,778), France (285,190), and Germany (185,213). In ratio to the population, Poland provided the second most permits 25.6 per 1,000 individuals, following Malta with 27.7 permits issued per 1,000 as well as Cyprus was listed third, with 24.6 per 1,000.
Additionally, 2.9 million resident permits were issued across the bloc, 31% more than in 2020 and around 3,000 fewer than those recorded in 2019. This represents a return to pre-pandemic levels for the number of residence permits.
Poland saw a significant increase in the number of licenses issued in 2021 as well, rising by 62% from the under 600,000 figures from the year prior. The highest annual total for the nation was approximately 725,000 in 2019.
With the exception of the United Kingdom, which will leave the EU in 2020, Poland has awarded the most first-residence permits in Europe during the past three years.
According to the grounds given for granting permits in 2021, Poland differed from other high-immigration nations in that 82% were for employment, compared to 24% in Spain, 13% in France, and 10% in Germany.
75.5 percent of the licenses awarded in 2021 were issued to citizens of Ukraine, followed by Belarus (13.5 percent), Russia (2.4 percent), Turkey (1%), and India as the primary countries of origin of those who received them (0.8 per cent).
In 2021, Ukrainians were the nationality group that received the most initial residence permits, with 83% of them being given by the Polish government alone, according to a different Eurostat report.
With 150,100 and 149,000 first-residence visas each, immigrants from Morocco and Belarus came in second and third, respectively, with Spain and Poland serving as their respective issuing nations.
