Spanish Immigration Increases for 2nd Consecutive Quarter

 

Earlier today Spain's Ministry of Labour and Immigration released date showing the number of foreign national legally resident in the country.

At the end of June of this year the figures had increased slightly for the second consecutive quarter, and now stand at 5,14 Million – an increase of 88'023 on the first quarter of the year.

Of this figure, some 2.67 Million were of Non-EU Origin, and 2.47 Million were from other EU Countries.

The report also finds that long term residency renewals increased by 3.7%, but temporary residency application had dropped by 1.54%

The most numerous Non-EU Citizens resident in Spain were the Moroccans at 791'118, Followed by Ecuador at 378'762 and Colombia at 228'655.

As far as EU Citizens Resident in Spain are concerned, Romania tops the list with 883,238, followed by the UK with 220,512 and Italy at 174'214.

The study concludes that Romanian applications brought the largest number of applications, whereas applications from Paraguay, Pakistan and Bolivia have seen the highest percentage of growth for applications.

There has been a decline in the number of applications coming from Portugal, Poland and Ecuador.

The UK authorities are generally sceptical about the number of British Citizens resident in Spain due to the onus being on the immigrant living in Spain to legally declare themselves resident after living in the country for 90 consecutive days. They maintain that many British Citizens do not do this, and therefore the statistics reported are inaccurate. Similarly, many expatiates who have declared themselves to be resident, but return to the UK never inform the Spanish authorities of their move, or in many cases the Town Halls themselves never pass on this information to the appropriate authorities for the fear that the decline in residents will impact upon their public funding.