37 000 Foreign Nationals Reside Permanently in Bulgaria

By the end of 2011, nearly 99.2% of Bulgaria's population had Bulgarian citizenship, while 0.5% were foreign nationals and 0.3% had dual citizenship (Bulgarian + foreign), according to data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) cited by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA).

Some 37 000 foreign nationals reside permanently in Bulgaria, 7000 of them from EU member states and 30 000 from other countries.

Sofia hosts the largest share of foreigners, 30%.

Around 12 000 Russians live in Bulgaria, which makes them the largest group of foreign nationals residing in the country, followed by Ukrainians (around 3000), Macedonians (around 1000), Moldovans (around 900) and Serbs (Around 600).

UK citizens make up the largest group of EU citizens living in Bulgaria, at 2600, followed by Germans (850), Poles (800), Italians (450), Greeks (250).

Close to 23% of the foreign nationals living in Bulgaria are citizens of Asian countries, the largest group of them being Turkish (32.6%), followed by Armenians (13.9%) and Chinese (8.9%).

According to recent Eurostat data, in 2011 around 33.3 million foreign citizens lived in the EU27, accounting for 6.6% of the total population of the bloc.

In 2011, the largest number of foreign citizens was registered in Germany, 7.2 million people, or 9% of the country's total population, followed by Spain with 5.7 million foreign citizens, or 12% of the country's population, Italy with 4.6 million foreigners (8% of the country's population), the UK with 4.5 million foreign citizens (7% of the population) and France with 3.8 million foreign citizens, or 7% of the country's population.

In total, more than 75% of the foreign citizens in the EU27 lived in these five member states.

The highest proportion of foreign citizens in the population was observed in Luxembourg (43%), followed by Cyprus (20%), Latvia (17%) and Estonia (16%).

The percentage of foreign citizens was less than 2% in Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia.

Focusing on EU citizens, Luxembourg recorded the highest proportion of foreign EU citizens (37% of the total population), followed by Cyprus (13%), Belgium and Ireland (both 7%), Spain (5%) and Austria (4%).

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