Of the 920,000 British citizens who had a residence permit in EU countries at the end of 2025 most of them are concentrated in three countries, new data has revealed.
Almost 920,000 British citizens had a residence permit in EU countries at the end of 2025, data by the EU statistical office, Eurostat, has revealed.
Britons were the 7th largest group of non-EU nationals residing in the EU, the data show, after Moroccan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Syrian and Indian citizens.
Almost three quarters of the British community were concentrated in three countries, Spain (409,000 or 44 percent of the total), France (172,000 or 19 percent), and the Netherlands (92,000 or 10 percent).
Eurostat started to collect data about residence permits issued to British nationals in 2021, after the country left the European Union and free movement of people with the EU ended. As a reference, at the end of 2025, 27.8 million non-EU citizens held residence permits in EU countries.
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The figures represent the total number of Britons who had a permit to reside in Europe at the end of 2025. Many other Britons will have returned home to the UK after 2021.
Data also show that some 50,100 British nationals had residence permits in Germany at the end of 2025, 21,200 in Italy, 17,400 in Denmark, 13,400 in Sweden 9,600 in Austria. Outside of the EU but in the European Economic Area, some 14,000 Britons had residence permits in Norway and 37,600 in Switzerland, a decline from 42,200 in 2021.
As regards the type of residence permit, almost 94,800 (10 percent) have been issued for employment purposes.
Spain and the Netherlands together granted more than half (28,800 and 26,500 respectively), followed by France (8,900) and, in the countries covered by The Local, Germany (4,500), Sweden (4,500), Denmark (1,700), Italy (1,050), Austria (330), Norway (2,500) and Switzerland (7,700).
A smaller proportion, 67,400 (7 percent of the total) obtained a residence permit for family reasons, again with Spain in the lead (24,200), followed by the Netherlands (5,000), Sweden (4,800), France (4,300), Germany (4,000), Italy (3,000), Denmark (1,100), Austria (360).
A signification proportion was also recorded in Switzerland (6,200) and Norway (1,500).
Education reasons account for less than 2 percent of total residence permits issued to British nationals (16,600). The top destination is Spain, which alone accounts for about half of the total (8,200), France (1,800), and Bulgaria (1,600).
But the largest proportion of residence permits issued to British nationals – almost 738,700, or 80 percent of the total – were issued for “other reasons”.
This category typically includes retired persons, diplomats, people under international protection or other types of residence permits.
But the huge number for British nationals suggests it also includes residence documents issued under the EU-UK withdrawal agreement granting rights to UK citizens who were living in the EU before Brexit.
However, it is not possible to separate the figure for Brexit-related residence cards.
Again, the largest number in this category was recorded by Spain (348,000), followed by France (157,000), the Netherlands (59,000), Portugal (43,000), and Germany (39,000).
Among the countries covered by The Local, Italy recorded around 16,900, Denmark 14,300, Austria 8,800, Poland 6,200, and Sweden 3,500, according to Eurostat.
In Switzerland, some 22,800 UK citizens had received a residence permit for “other reasons”, and in Norway 9,800.
Since Brexit, many British residents have naturalised in EU countries that allow multiple nationalities, and they do may appear in these statistics.
