Although Albania is one of the smallest countries in Europe, its citizens are spread across the European Union, being on the list of top countries for non-EU nationality residents in the European Union.
When compared to population size, our country tops the list in Europe, an indicator of the large scale of immigration.
According to data published by Eurostat, Albanian citizens ranked 11th in the chart of the main nationalities of non-EU citizens resident in the EU in 2024, by number in absolute value.
According to the graph, there are about 550 thousand Albanians living in EU countries, mainly in Italy, but as noted in the legend, the graph is missing Greece, where according to various data at least 500 thousand Albanians live. At the level of over 1 million inhabitants, Albania would rank fourth in absolute number, after citizens of Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco.
If calculated based on the population remaining in the country of origin, Albania absolutely leads, even without including the data from Greece. Albania, with around 550 thousand citizens in the EU and a population of 2.36 million, reaches around 230 citizens per 1,000 inhabitants, a figure much higher than any other country in the graph.
Even without including Greece, the indicator places Albania significantly above other countries in the region, such as Kosovo (218), North Macedonia (107), Bosnia and Herzegovina (125) or Serbia (68), which also exhibit high levels of emigration, but lower than Albania.
If Greece, where a large number of Albanians live, is included, the weight of emigration per 1,000 inhabitants increases even more, reaching 466 emigrants per 1,000 inhabitants, meaning approximately 1 in 2 Albanians lives in the EU, which places the country significantly at the top of the list in relation to population.
The differences are pronounced in relation to the countries that top the list in absolute terms due to the high population they have in their country of origin. For Ukraine, Eurostat reports around 2.6 million citizens resident in the EU, but compared to a population of around 39 million, this translates to around 67 citizens for every 1,000 inhabitants.
In the case of Turkey, with around 1.7 million citizens in the EU and a population of around 85 million, the weight drops to around 20 per 1,000 inhabitants, while for Morocco, with around 1.5 million citizens in the EU and a population of around 37 million, the level is around 41 per 1,000 inhabitants.
This comparison highlights that the Eurostat chart, although it ranks Albania outside the "top 10" in absolute numbers, places the country at the top when the figures are normalized with population, reflecting a very large emigration for a small country, perhaps unique in the world, as the chart clearly shows in relation to population size./Monitor
