Immigrants and returnees: arrivals remain stable, but from Morocco there has been a 71.6 per cent increase

There are around 440,000 new registrations on the Italian population register from abroad each year, but their country of origin has changed significantly in just three years. New residents from across the border – 328,000 of whom were registered, net of those leaving, between 2023 and 2025 in the 106 provincial capitals – thus contribute to our country’s net migration balance.

In detail, the number of arrivals from abroad in 2025 stood at 439,916, roughly the same as in 2023 (up just 0.1 per cent), following the peak of 451,583 reached in 2024. Arrivals from Europe are losing ground, having fallen from 169,397 in 2023 to 135,324 in 2025. Whilst in 2023 they accounted for 38.5 per cent of all enrolments from abroad, last year this figure fell to 30.8 per cent.

Asia is moving in the opposite direction

Arrivals from Asia rose from 94,688 to 118,647, an increase of 25.3 per cent compared with 2023. This accounts for 27 per cent of total arrivals, compared with 21.5 per cent two years earlier. Last year, Asia overtook Africa to become the second-largest source region after Europe.

The growth is being driven by Bangladesh, which has taken the top spot as the single largest country of origin (a total of 37,494 new registrations in 2025, up 44.3 per cent over the three-year period). This is followed by arrivals from Morocco, which have jumped from 21,223 to 36,425 in just two years (+71.6 per cent). In 2025, these two countries alone therefore accounted for almost 74,000 registrations of foreign nationals, roughly one in every six.

Also in Asia, Pakistan is growing (+25.7 per cent), as is India (+22.9 per cent). However, the sharpest percentage increase was seen in Sri Lanka: enrolments more than doubled, from 2,876 in 2023 to 7,294 (+153.6%). China bucked the trend, falling from 8,746 to 8,157 new enrolments (-6.7 per cent).