In 2017, 618 780 non-EU citizens were found to be illegally present in the EU. The number of non-EU citizens who were issued with an order to leave the EU reached 516 115 persons. Following the receipt of an order to leave the territory of an EU Member State, some 213 505 non-EU citizens were returned to another country, of these 188 905 to a non-EU country. The number of non-EU citizens who were refused entry into the EU stood at 439 505 in 2017.

37 % fewer non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in the EU in 2017 compared with 2016

In 2017, 618 780 non-EU citizens were found to be illegally present in the EU. This was down by 37% compared with one year before (983 860) and by 71% when compared with the peak of 2015 when the total number of non-EU citizens found to be illegally present stood at 2 154 675.

The EU Member State which reported the largest number of non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in 2017 was Germany (156 710), followed by France (115 085), Greece (68 110), the United Kingdom (54 910) and Spain (44 625). These five Member States together accounted for 71% of all those found to be illegally present in the EU.

4.5% more non-EU citizens ordered to leave EU territories in the EU in 2017 compared with 2016

The total number of non-EU citizens ordered to leave EU territories increased by 4.5% to 516 115 in 2017 compared with 493 785 in 2016.

The EU Member State which reported the largest number of non-EU citizens ordered to leave its territory in 2017 was Germany (97 165), followed by France (84 675) and the United Kingdom (54 910). Only those three Member States recorded double-digit shares of persons ordered to leave EU territories in the EU total (respectively 19%, 16% and 11%).

17% fewer non-EU citizens were returned to a third country in 2017 compared with 2016

In 2017, 188 905 non-EU citizens who had been issued with an order to leave the territories of an EU Member State were returned outside of the EU; a reduction of 17% when compared with a year before, when there had been 228 625 non-EU citizens returned to a non-EU Member State.

Germany reported the largest number of non-EU citizens returned to a third country (44 960), followed by the United Kingdom (29 090) and Poland (22 165).

Spain accounted for almost half of all non-EU citizens who were refused entry into the EU in 2017

In 2017, some 439 505 non-EU citizens were refused entry into the EU at one of its external borders, up 13% compared with 388 280 in the previous year.

Nearly half of the total number of refusals were recorded in Spain (203 025), with the next highest numbers in France (86 320) and Poland (38 660); together these three EU Member States accounted for three quarters (75 %) of the total number of non-EU citizens refused entry into the EU in 2017.

The source datasets can be found here: migr_eirfs, migr_eipre, migr_eiord and migr_eirtn.

Further information on migration enforcement in the EU can be found in this Statistics Explained article.

For more information please contact us: estat-user-support@ec.europa.eu