Migration from Latin America to Europe

Spain is the second destination of choice after the United States for Latin American migrants and the vast majority of Latin Americans in Europe are residents or nationals of this country.[1][2]

After several years of decline since a peak in 2010, the population of Spain born in Latin American has grown again since 2016. In 2019, 3,114,076 Spanish people born in South, Central America or the Caribbean (excluding Puerto Rico) had been legally residing in Spain for the last 12 months, compared to 2,340,247 in 2016 and 2,459,098 in 2010. A majority hold Spanish citizenship.[3][4]

Following the "Law of historic memory" Latin Americans with a Spanish parent or grandparent (and their descendants) have automatic right to Spanish citizenship, even without residing in the country. This potentially applies to millions of Latin Americans. In addition, all Latin Americans from Spanish speaking countries qualify for Spanish citizens after two years' residence, regardless of recent ancestry. This compares very favorably to the requirement of ten years' residence for immigrants from other countries.

As a result a significant and ever growing portion of Latin American immigrants have acquired Spanish citizenship due to naturalization laws and the falling number of Latin Americans residing in Spain is primarily due to them acquiring Spanish nationality and no longer being classed as immigrants. In the period between 2011 and 2013, over one million immigrants acquired Spanish citizenship and over 75% of these were Latin American.[5] As an example, by 2014 the majority of Spain's 408,944 Ecuatorian-born residents had already acquired Spanish citizenship and were no longer included national statistics tracking immigration.[6] As a result, Latin Americans with Spanish citizenship living in other European countries such as the UK, France or Germany benefiting from European freedom of movement and establishment for all EU citizens will be categorized as Spaniards when using nationality as a criterion to determine the country of origin (rather than country of birth) of a particular EU country's immigrant population.[7][8] Despite Spain's prolonged 2008-2015 economic crisis during which the country suffered years of massive unemployment and went from having the second highest immigration rate in the world to becoming a net-emigrant country, less than 30% of Spain's Latin American immigrants have left the country during this period.[9] As a result of the combined effect of nationalization and net emigration during the economic crisis, the Latin American resident population yet to acquire Spanish nationality fell steadily to around 900,000 in 2015.[10]

Country of birth	Population (2019)[11]	Corresponding article
Ecuador	408,083	Ecuadorians in Spain
Colombia	440,197	Colombians in Spain
Argentina	267,994	Argentines in Spain
Venezuela	323,575	Venezuelans in Spain
Peru	218,129	Peruvians in Spain
Dominican Republic	173,531	Dominicans in Spain
Bolivia	174,672
Cuba	151,327
Brazil	143,228
Paraguay	97,528	Paraguayans in Spain
Honduras	105,943
Uruguay	75,770	Uruguayans in Spain

The most numerous are the Brazilians (120,550),[13] followed by Colombians (40,000)[14] and Venezuelans (30,000),[15] Peruvians (22,002)[16] Argentinians (11,899)[17] and Chileans (15,782).[18]

According to the 2001 UK Census, 62,735 Latin Americans in the United Kingdom were born in their respective nations of origin.[19] There were also a further 1,338 people who stated their birthplace as 'South or Central America' (note this would also include Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname, which are not part of Latin America.).[19] In 2009, the Office for National Statistics estimated that the number of Brazilian-born people in the UK alone had risen to around 60,000 and the number of Colombian-born to around 22,000. Estimates for other Latin American countries were not made because the sample size did not allow for estimation of the size of smaller groups with sufficient degree of accuracy.[20]

Latin American-born people in the United Kingdom in 2001

Country of birth	Population (2011 census)[21][22][23]	Corresponding article
Brazil	52,148	Brazilians in the United Kingdom
Colombia[24]	25,761	Colombians in the United Kingdom
Argentina	10,550
Mexico	9,771	Mexicans in the United Kingdom
Venezuela	9,150
Ecuador	8,767	Ecuadorians in the United Kingdom
Peru	7,246	Peruvians in the United Kingdom
Chile	7,130	Chileans in the United Kingdom
Bolivia	3,765	Bolivians in the United Kingdom
Cuba	2,481
Dominican Republic	1,377
Uruguay	1,364

From 1977 to 2012, the number of non-Norwegian citizens living in Norway of European descent has increased from around 46,000 to around 280,000. In the same period the number of citizens of nations on other continents increased from about 25,000 to about 127,000, of which 112,230 belong to Asia, Africa and South America.[25]

Immigrants and Norwegian-born to immigrant parents, by country of origin

Rank	Country of origin[26]	Population (2001)[27]	Population (2014)[28]
1.	Chile	6,491	7,904
2.	Brazil	824	4,017
3.	Colombia	604	3,841
4.	Peru	492	1,295
5.	Cuba	286	959
6.	Argentina	378	890
7.	Dominican Republic	276	844
8.	Ecuador	174	492
9.	Bolivia	134	308
11.	El Salvador	134	235
12.	Uruguay	167	234
13.	Guatemala	81	191
15.	Nicaragua	78	159
16.	Costa Rica	52	133
17.	Honduras	64	117

Immigrants and Dutch-born to immigrant parents

Iberian America

Country of origin[29]	Population (1996)[30]	Population (2000)	Population (2005)	Population (2010)	Population (2015)	Population (2019)
Argentina	2,952	3,239	4,167	4,522	4,245	6,508
Bolivia	408	547	744	954	1,170	1,415
Brazil	6,589	8,913	12,289	17,022	22,041	30,104
Chile	3,566	3,937	4,564	4,936	5,488	6,207
Colombia	4,937	7,025	9,885	12,292	15,346	18,351
Costa Rica	274	444	623	741	970	1,242
Cuba	361	781	1,361	1,748	2,052	2,333
Dominican Republic	5,321	7,341	9,843	11,600	13,651	15,206
Ecuador	559	1,121	1,883	2,466	3,200	3,943
El Salvador	304	350	453	544	626	752
Guatemala	229	339	471	604	815	1,034
Honduras	203	269	387	505	670	816
Mexico	1,251	1,802	2,894	4,054	5,548	7,618
Nicaragua	273	314	403	535	693	843
Panama	244	278	353	393	470	561
Paraguay	215	238	270	281	328	371
Peru	1,849	2,418	3,662	4,925	6,100	7,324
Puerto Rico	91	101	132	153	199	241
Uruguay	805	886	997	1,069	1,135	1,234
Venezuela	2,257	2,948	4,090	4,936	6,002	7,420

Other / Dutch Americas

Country of origin[31]	Population (1996)[32]	Population (2000)	Population (2005)	Population (2010)	Population (2015)	Population (2019)
Aruba	274	592	1,204	2,250	4,130	5,610
Curaçao [33]					203	982
Caribbean Netherlands* [34][35]					15	64
Netherlands Antilles* (dissolved)	86,550	106,605	129,334	136,170	144,565[36]	154,510[37]

• includes Saba, Sint Maarten and Sint Eustatius which are not considered a part of Latin America because of the lack of Papiamentu language

French Latin America

Country of origin[38]	Population (1996)[39]	Population (2000)	Population (2005)	Population (2010)	Population (2015)	Population (2019)
Martinique	85	94	105	106	121	123
French Guiana	401	477	707	716	767	836
Guadeloupe	194	219	306	301	327	397
Haiti	223	331	540	619	703	865

In 2008, Portugal's foreign population grew 1% from 435,736 in 2007 to 440,277. One in four immigrants is Brazilian,[40] and Portugal was a country for an increasing amount of Venezuelans. There are also other communities from Argentina, the latter can have Portuguese ancestry due to the historical ties between both nations.[41]

Country of birth	Population (2011)[42]	Corresponding article
Brazil	139,703	Brazilians in Portugal
Venezuela	25,157

In 2013 there were a total of 1,937,447 permanent foreign residents (23.8% of the total population of 8.14 million) in Switzerland. Of these, 51,761 were from Latin America and the Caribbean.[43]

The list is not complete, as it does not include some Latin Americans that have gotten citizenship via jus sanguinis.

Rank	Country of origin	Population (2017)[44]
1.	Peru	99,110
2.	Ecuador	83,120
3.	Brazil	45,410
4.	Dominican Republic	28,002
5.	Cuba	20,986
6.	Colombia	17,968
7.	Bolivia	14,076
8.	El Salvador	13,492
9.	Argentina	8,009
10.	Venezuela	6,327
11.	Mexico	4,211
12.	Chile	3,167
13.	Honduras	2,015
14.	Paraguay	1,781
15.	Uruguay	1,248

Total amount of latinos residing in the European Union (as of 2011); ~3.843.026

• List of countries by immigrant population
• Latin American migration to the United Kingdom
• Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Latino diaspora