Romania records positive net migration for the third consecutive year

Romania is gradually changing its migration profile: for the third consecutive year, the number of people settling in the country is higher than those leaving. Between 2022 and 2024, Romania recorded an increase of almost 200,000 inhabitants due to immigration, according to the Social Monitor, a project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung based on official data.

The latest data published by the National Institute of Statistics confirms that Romania is no longer predominantly a source country for emigration, but rather for immigration: in 2024, for the third consecutive year, more people settled in Romania for a period longer than 12 months than those who emigrated. The migration balance was 97,114 people in 2022, +66,065 people in 2023, and +36,200 people in 2024.

It should be noted that when we talk about immigrants, we are not referring exclusively to foreign citizens. Thus, in 2023, the latest data published by Eurostat showed that approximately two-thirds (217,500) of the 324,000 registered long-term immigrants were Romanian citizens who had returned to the country. Of the 106,500 immigrants with foreign citizenship, the largest numbers were from Nepal (18,042), Sri Lanka (14,316), Turkey (9,366), India (7,830), Moldova (5,742), and Bangladesh (4,982).

Similarly, data on emigrants from Romania does not only include Romanian citizens. Thus, in 2023, there were 239,000 emigrants from Romania. Of these, only 150,000 (63%) had Romanian citizenship. Significant contingents of emigrants from Romania had Nepalese (11,417), Turkish (10,698), Sri Lankan (8,123), Moldovan (7,738), and Indian (5,474) citizenship.

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Data source:

• National Institute of Statistics, Resident population on January 1, 2025, and international migration in 2024, https://insse.ro/cms/ro/content/popula%C5%A3ia-rezident%C4%83-la-1-ianuarie-2025-%C5%9Fi-migra%C5%A3ia-interna%C5%A3ional%C4%83-%C3%AEn-anul-2024
• Eurostat, Immigration by age group, sex and citizenship, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_imm1ctz/default/table?lang=en
• Eurostat, Emigration by age group, sex and citizenship, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_emi1ctz__custom_17968774/default/table

Data processing and text design: Mircea Kivu

Infographic: Pascalone Media SRL