Malta issued 20.6 residence permits per thousand inhabitants in 2016, more than three times the EU average of 6.5.

Cyprus came in second with 19.9 and Poland third with15.4, followed by Sweden (14.8) and the United Kingdom (13.2), according to Eurostat.

In 2016, Malta issued 8,995 residence permits, of which 1,719 were for family reasons, 1,848 for education reasons, 3,036 for employment reasons, and 2,392 for ‘other reasons’, including international protection and humanitarian status.

In 2016, about 3.4 million first residence permits were issued in the European Union (EU) to non-EU citizens, a record number since comparable data are available (2008) and up by 28% compared with 2015.

In 2016, Malta issued 8,995 residence permits.

Employment accounted for a quarter (25.4%) of all first residence permits issued in the EU in 2016, family for 23.2% and education for 20.7%, while ‘other reasons’ (about 14% of all first permits issued in 2016), represented 30.7%.

In 2016, in absolute terms, one out of four first residence permits was issued in the United Kingdom (865,900 residence permits issued, or 25.8% of total permits issued in the EU). It was followed by Poland (586,000, or 17.5%), Germany (504,800, or 15%), France (235,000, or 7%), Italy (222,400, or 6.6%), Spain (211,500, or 6.3%) and Sweden (146,700, or 4.4%).

Citizens of Ukraine (588,900 beneficiaries), continued to receive the highest number of permits in the EU, ahead of citizens of Syria (348,100), the United States (250 900), India (198,400) and China (195,600). Around half of all first residence permits issued in the EU in 2016 were issued to citizens of these five countries.

In Malta, Serbians got 1,072 permits, Libyas 984 and Filipinos 711.