ZAGREB, 29 March, 2021 - In 2020 Germany saw the lowest increase in the number of foreigners in the last ten years, however, despite the pandemic, more than 26,000 Croatians emigrated to Germany last year, show statistics published by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden on Monday.
The net increase in the number of Croatian citizens with residency in Germany in 2020 was 11,955 to 426,845.
From 1 January to 31 December 2020, 26,335 Croatian nationals emigrated to Germany while 10,305 Croatians moved out. Around 1,000 Croatian citizens obtained German citizenship and were consequently removed from the register of foreigners.
Croatians are the sixth most numerous foreign community in Germany, after Turks, Poles, Syrians, Romanians and Italians.
The number of Croatians with residency in Germany has almost doubled since Croatia joined the EU in 2013.
In 2012, the last year before Croatia's accession to the EU, there were 224,971 Croatians in Germany.
In 2020, the number of people with a foreign passport in Germany rose by 262,000 while in 2019 it grew by 376,000.
Statistics for 2020 show that immigration from EU countries remained stable but immigration from third countries slowed down significantly, which is associated with difficulties related to the coronavirus pandemic.
At the end of 2020, roughly 11.4 million foreigners lived in Germany.
The number of residents from the Western Balkans grew last year as well.
Currently 211,000 nationals of Bosnia and Herzegovina live in Germany, which is around 7,000 more than in the previous year, as do 242,000 Serbians, around 5,000 more than in 2019.
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