European Union countries issue 3.9 million new residence permits to non-EU citizens in 2025, according to newly reported data. The figure is about 10% higher than in 2024 and represents the highest level recorded since the data series began, the outlet reports.
The report frames the increase in the context of longer-term trends in EU residence-permit granting, noting that multiple countries participate in issuing permits under different national systems. While the headline data point is common across reporting, the outlet also highlights uncertainty around which individual countries issued the most, indicating that further breakdown by member state is needed to compare national performance.
Taken together, the coverage focuses on the overall EU total and its year-on-year rise, rather than attributing the change to a specific policy or economic factor. The main emphasis is the scale of the permits issued and the record-high status of the latest year in the available series.
