The European countries issued a total of 3.4 million residence permits in 2022, with Poland holding the highest number of permits granted for the year. However, in terms of population rates, Malta has issued the most number of permits, as Schengen Statistics show.
For a population of 535,064, 37,851 residence permits were issued, with the issuance rate for 10,000 people being around 707 – the highest in Europe, while Cyprus follows second with 308 residence permits granted for every 10,000 inhabitants and totalling 38,851 permits obtained by third-country nationals.
However, taking into account that the Maltese and Cypriot populations are considerably smaller than other countries, it makes sense that the number of residence permits issued is higher in these two countries.
On the other hand, among countries that have a higher population and larger territory, Poland has the highest number of residence permits granted for 10,000 individuals – around 170, while in total, 700,264 were granted in 2022.
Besart Bajrami, the founder of SchengenVisaInfo.com, points out that due to the small population ratio of Cyprus and Malta, the number of residence permits granted might look uneven.
Comparing only countries with a broader population number, Poland remains the top country to grant the most residence permits in general as well as per capita in 2022.
The second country to follow is Ireland, with 85,793 residence permits granted – which indicates that around 169 permits are obtained for every 10,000 people.
Countries that have the highest number of residence permits issued per capita that follow the list include Slovenia, Luxembourg and Portugal, with the number of permits granted being around 154 and 106 per 10,000 people.
Furthermore, 100 people per capita were granted a residence permit in Lithuania in 2022, which totals up to 27,380 permits issued while the Lithuanian population is approximately 2.7 million.
The three remaining countries with the highest number of residence permits issued per capita include Spain, Finland and Sweden, which have between 96 and 79 permits per 10,000 people.
In total, these three countries issued 591,974 residence permits in 2022, with the highest number recorded in Finland (457,412), whereas Spain and Sweden have granted around 50,000 and 85,000.
Countries that have issued residence permits the fewest in 2022 per capita include Norway, with one residence permit with the total number of these permits granted reaching 902. The second and third countries that issued the fewest permits per capita last year were Romania and Bulgaria, with 21 and 23 permits granted, respectively.
In general, countries with the highest number of residence permits granted in 2022 are Poland, Germany and Spain, while on the other end of the scale are countries like Norway, Estonia and Latvia, with less than 10,000 residence permits issued.
