Where Europeans Go
Top & emerging destinations
Hover over a highlighted country for its complete category list.
Western Europe refers to Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Liechtenstein. Southern Europe refers to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, San Marino, and Andorra. The Nordics refers to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland. Central & Eastern Europe refers to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Caucasus refers to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Long-settled diasporas still growing
Western Europe
Emigration from the UK has increased and outpaced immigration to the UK since Brexit, with a net loss of about 136,000 for those aged 16-34 in particular. Australia, the U.S., Spain, Canada, and the UAE lead as destinations for British expats, with South Africa, Cyprus, and Thailand also drawing significant numbers. Because of Brexit, Ireland is now the only international destination that British citizens can fully relocate to without a visa or residency application; this is made possible via the UK–Ireland Common Travel Area. Ireland's emigration has also outpaced immigration and for five straight years; 35,400 Irish citizens left vs 30,200 returnees YTD April 2026. The surge in Irish emigration to Australia peaked in the 12 months to April 2025 — up 187% from the same period ending April 2023 — and has since eased, falling 13% in the rolling 12-month period to April 2026. Ireland's diaspora is nonetheless historically enormous at up to 70–80 million, mainly in the U.S., UK, and Australia.
German emigration was up 7% YoY in 2025 for a net loss of roughly 97,000, the widest since 2016. Switzerland remains the top destination for German residents abroad by a wide margin followed by Austria and Spain. Spain overtook the U.S. for third place in 2025, pushing the U.S. out of Germany's top three yearly destinations for the first time in 25 years.
French nationals abroad are estimated at over 2.5 million, with the largest registered communities in Switzerland, the U.S., the UK, Belgium, and Canada. Citizens of the Netherlands and Belgium emigrate in smaller absolute numbers, but follow a similar pattern favoring neighboring EU states and, for Dutch nationals specifically, the Dutch Caribbean.
European Mobility: the EU & the EEA
Per legislation, citizens of any EU member country can live in any other EU member country without a visa, and after three months, only need to show they're employed, studying, or self-sufficient — no work permit, sponsor, or points test required — to remain. This right extends, in general terms, to the three EEA/EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries — Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway — and via a separate bilateral agreement to Switzerland. Germany is the top destination for EU citizens overall, followed by Spain, Switzerland, and Italy.
Post-Brexit, UK citizens lost this right entirely and are now treated as third-country nationals in the EU, limited to 90 days within any 180-day period without a residence permit, a major reason British nationals acquiring EU citizenship rose sharply after 2016; Britons were the largest group of non-EU nationals acquiring citizenship in Denmark and Cyprus in 2024.
Brain drain & its first signs of reversing
Southern Europe
Expats from Portugal relocate primarily to France, Switzerland, and the U.S., driven largely by a persistent wage gap compared to several other European countries; Portugal now ranks 14th among EU nations on brain-drain indices. Expats from Portugal also relocate to Angola, but that emigration fell 37% YoY in 2024, continuing a decline tied to the collapse in oil prices that has weighed on Angola's economy since 2016; Angola, however, does still continue to draw some Portuguese professionals. Expats from Italy and Spain predominantly favor Germany, Switzerland, and France.
Greece's brain drain, driven by the 2009–2018 debt crisis, has begun to reverse: 2023 was the first year Greek return migration outpaced departures, aided by the government's Rebrain Greece initiative and rising minimum wages. However, recent reporting on Greeks who emigrated during the debt crisis found that 58% intended to remain abroad for more than 5 years or move on to a third country rather than return to Greece; Germany and the Netherlands still hold the bulk of more recent Greek expats.
A shared labor market
The Nordics
Norway's single largest expat community is in the U.S. Expats from Denmark are also more likely to live in the U.S. or the UK rather than in Norway or Sweden. Expats from Sweden still favor Denmark, Norway, Germany, and the UK, but Germany is now the more common, emerging destination. A large majority of expats from Finland still go to Sweden, continuing a legacy of the roughly 530,000 Finns who moved there between 1945 and 1999. Of the expats from Iceland as of December 2025, 62% are in other Nordic countries, with the U.S. and the UK a distance second tier. Thailand has long hosted a modest Nordic retiree and business community: Hua Hin, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and Phuket all have established Scandinavian networks. However, the number of Nordic expats in Thailand has been shrinking rather than growing.
The Nordic countries have run their own, older free-movement system since 1954, predating the EU, through two related agreements: the Nordic Passport Union, which lets Nordic nationals travel and take up residence in any other Nordic country without a passport, and the Agreement Concerning a Common Nordic Labour Market, which removes work-permit requirements. Together, the two agreements let Nordic nationals live and work in any other Nordic country without typical requirements.
Europe's largest number of expats by population share
Central & Eastern Europe
Expats from Romania are mainly concentrated in Germany, Italy, the UK, and Canada. More than 2 million Romanians, close to 20% of the pre-emigration labor force, have left over the past 10–15 years, and most students who study abroad do not intend to return. While the overall diaspora from Poland is large, many expats are currently returning to Poland because wage gaps with many Western European countries have narrowed and to care for aging parents. In 2024, more Poles left Germany than arrived for the first time in roughly 25 years, and the Netherlands recorded its first-ever negative migration balance with Poland in 2025.
Emigration from Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, and the Baltic states follows a broadly similar post-EU-accession pattern to Poland and Romania, with labor-driven movement toward Germany and the UK overall. Austria is a top-three destination for Hungarian, Czech, and Slovak expats; Spain is a top destination for expats from Bulgaria. Austria, Germany, and Switzerland account for roughly two-thirds of expats from Slovenia and Croatia. Croatia is also a substantial secondary destination for Slovenes due to a legacy of shared Yugoslav-era. Croatian emigration has fallen sharply by 57% over the past 7 years as of 2024 due to return migration to Croatia.
Diasporas at the crossroads of Europe and Asia
About 13% of Georgia's population lives abroad, with Russia, Greece, and Ukraine together accounting for an estimated 60% of that total. Italy, the United States, and Germany have seen the fastest recent growth, driven by EU labor migration and steady demand for seasonal agricultural work. Expats from Armenia primarily relocate to Russia, the United States, and Ukraine, in that order, with growing communities in France and Germany. Azerbaijani emigration is smaller as a share of population and overwhelmingly regional: Russia and Kazakhstan absorb the large majority, with Türkiye a distant third and Ukraine and neighboring Georgia rounding out the top destinations.
All three countries have belonged to the EU's Eastern Partnership since 2009, alongside Ukraine and Moldova. Georgia applied for EU membership in 2022 and, while the country was granted candidate status in December 2023, the European Council then determined in 2024 that domestic backsliding had de facto halted the accession process. Armenia's EU Association Agreement talks broke off in 2013 when the country opted into the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union instead, and membership is no longer being considered at the moment. Azerbaijan has never pursued EU membership.
A labor-migration history that predates 2022 & a current picture reshaped by war
As of mid-2020, an estimated 6.1 million Ukrainians already lived abroad, historically split between Russia and, increasingly after 2014, Poland; by 2017, Poland had overtaken Russia as the top destination for Ukrainian labor migrants. Germany and Poland remain by far the largest hosts of Ukrainians in Europe as of 2025–2026, with Czechia third; the UK and Spain have grown fastest most recently, even as the two largest hosts saw their numbers edge down slightly in 2025. These latest figures are overwhelmingly a result of wartime displacement rather than the voluntary labor migration from before the war.
Excluding former-Soviet countries, Germany is the top destination for expats from Russia by a wide margin, followed distantly by the U.S. At least 600,000–800,000 people left Russia in the year following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, driven by conscription risk, political repression, and economic isolation. Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Serbia, and Türkiye absorbed most of the initial wave, largely because they offered visa-free or low-barrier entry, but about 50% of those who initially went to Georgia and Türkiye have since left for a third country; Russians who reached Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands have been far more likely to stay and integrate. The UAE has become a prominent destination for wealthier Russians, particularly for business and real estate. In 2024 and 2025, about 109,000 and 97,000 Russians, respectively, acquired foreign citizenship or residency, most commonly in Germany, Israel, Spain, Armenia, and the U.S. Türkiye issued 87,000 residence permits to Russians in 2024 alone.