Summaries of EU Legislation

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Migration statistics

SUMMARY OF:

Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 — EU statistics on migration and international protection

WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE REGULATION?

Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 sets out EU rules for collecting and compiling statistics on migration (emigration* and immigration*), international protection (asylum), regular and irregular migration* and returns by EU and EFTA countries.
To ensure reliable, relevant and timely statistics are available in the area of migration and international protection, and to support the European Agenda on Migration, amending Regulation (EU) 2020/851 introduces additional statistics to be collected by Eurostat and adds rules for introducing pilot studies to test the feasibility of new data collections or disaggregations within the scope of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007.

KEY POINTS

Statistical requirements

The regulation sets out the statistical requirements for different categories of data:

For international migration, EU countries must provide Eurostat with statistics on:
- immigrants moving to their territories;
- emigrants moving from their territories;
- persons usually resident on their territories;
- persons having acquired national citizenship.
For residence permits and residence of non-EU citizens, EU countries must provide Eurostat with statistics on:
- residence permits issued, permits issued due to the change of immigration status or reason to stay; and long-term residence permits issued;
- the numbers of valid residence permits and long-term residence permits.
For international protection, EU countries must provide Eurostat with statistics on:
- persons applying for international protection including first-time and subsequent applications;
- unaccompanied children applying for international protection;
- pending applications for international protection;
- withdrawn asylum applications;
- applications processed under accelerated procedure;
- applicants benefiting from material reception conditions;
- rejected applications for international protection;
- grants of refugee, subsidiary protection, national humanitarian and temporary protection statuses;
- requests and re-examination requests, decisions and transfers under the Dublin III Regulation;
- beneficiaries of resettlement*.
For the prevention of irregular entry and stay, and for returns, EU countries must provide statistics on the number of:
- non-EU citizens who have been refused entry at their external borders;
- non-EU citizens who have been found illegally present on their territories;
- administrative or judicial decisions imposing an obligation to leave their territories;
- the number of non-EU citizens who are returned having been given an order to leave.

Data sources

The statistics are based on a number of sources including:

records of administrative and judicial actions;
registers of the population or relating to administrative actions;
censuses;
sample surveys.

In general, the statistics are broken down by age, sex and citizenship. However, data are also collected for other categories such as the reason for issuing a residence permit or country of birth and country of previous or next residence for migration data.

Pilot studies

Amending Regulation (EU) 2020/851 introduces pilot studies to test the feasibility of new data collections or disaggregations within the scope of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007.

Financial contributions from the EU budget are available for national institutes to:

develop new methodologies for statistics on migration and international protection; and
develop or implement new data collections and disaggregations, including the upgrading of data sources and IT systems, for a period of up to 5 years.

Implementation

The European Commission submits a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the regulation every 3 years. The 2018 report found clear improvements in data availability, completeness, quality and timeliness.

FROM WHEN DOES THIS REGULATION APPLY?

It has applied since 20 August 2007.

BACKGROUND

For more information, see:

Migration and migrant population statistics (Eurostat)
Asylum and managed migration statistics (Eurostat).

KEY TERMS

Emigration: the action by which a person, having previously been resident in an EU country, changes his or her country of residence for a period that is or is expected to be of at least 12 months.

Immigration: the action by which a person establishes his or her residence in the territory of another EU or non-EU country for a period that is or is expected to be of at least 12 months.

Irregular migration: the movement of people across borders that does not conform to the administrative or legal norms of the sending, transit or receiving country.

Resettlement: the transfer of non-EU country citizens to an EU country where they are permitted to reside for the purposes of international protection.

MAIN DOCUMENT

Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 311/76 on the compilation of statistics on foreign workers (OJ L 199, 31.7.2007, pp. 23-29)

Successive amendments to Regulation (EU) No 862/2007 have been incorporated into the original text. This consolidated version is of documentary value only.