EU Foreign-Born Population Hits Record High, With Spain a Standout in Its Rate of Increase

Immigrants are guarded by Greek policemen as they wait to be registered at a camp set up for arrivals from Afghanistan near Moria on the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Oct. 6, 2015. Zoltan Balogh/MTI via APThe foreign-born population of the European Union exceeded 64 million, or 14 percent of the population, in 2025—a historic high. Spain alone accounted for roughly a third of the bloc’s annual increase, according to a new report from the Center for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at RFBerlin, an independent research institute.The study, titled “The Immigrant Population in the European Union: Growth, Concentration and Dispersion” and authored by economists Tommaso Frattini and Camilla Piovesan, draws on Eurostat and U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) data to map the sharp and uneven growth in migration flows across the 27-member bloc.