2. Introduction

This report is the second in a series being published to provide more information on British citizens living in the European Union (EU), and EU citizens living in the UK. This series has been created in response to an increased user need for data about the people who may be most likely to be affected by the UK's decision to leave the EU.

It presents the available statistics that estimate the numbers of British people living in EU8 countries – those that joined the European Union at the same time and share characteristics: Poland, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia. The report also considers citizens of EU8 countries living in the UK.

Figure 1: EU groupings used within UK migration statistics, 2017 Source: Office for National Statistics Notes: 1.There are 28 countries in the European Union (EU28) as at 1 January 2017. For the purposes of our statistics we do not include the UK within the EU15. EU15 joined before 2004, EU8 in 2004, EU2 in 2007 and for EU Other, Malta in 2004, Cyprus in 2004 and Croatia in 2013. Download this image Figure 1: EU groupings used within UK migration statistics, 2017 .png

We previously published How many British citizens live in Europe?' on this topic. Now, more up-to-date data about British citizens living in the EU is available, and more detailed analysis has been conducted using data from the 2011 round of European censuses. In addition, we have combined the Annual Population Survey into a 3-year-average data set, allowing a robust analysis of European citizens living in the UK. Additional analyses of short-term migration and visits of less than 28 days are also included in this report. Together, these sources provide a more complete picture of how many UK and EU citizens are “living abroad”, how many are staying abroad for shorter periods of time, and what they are doing while there.

There are three “types” of migrant discussed in this report:

Long-term resident; those people who have lived abroad for one year or longer, or intend to live there for one year or longer. However, because this doesn’t include those spending part of the year abroad, two further “types” are considered.

Short-term migrant; those spending 1 to 12 months living abroad. This can be for any reason, and would include those who spend part of the year living abroad (for example, summer in EU8 countries and winter in UK).

Visitor; those spending up to 28 days abroad. This group is largely holidaymakers, and will include, for example, those who repeatedly spend time in EU8 countries.

All of the statistics in this report use a citizenship definition to identify migrants, as this is considered to be the most useful in identifying those who may be most likely to be affected by the UK's decision to leave the EU.

This is particularly the case when compared to the use of a “country of birth” definition of a migrant, which can miss some groups of citizens. Differences in the use of these two definitions are fully explained in the January 2017 report, What information is there on British migrants living in Europe?’.

Citizenship can change over time, and multiple citizenships can be held. The way that multiple citizenships are dealt with is different between the different data sources in this report. For more information, please see Appendix 1.