In 2024, Istat estimated that 5,253,658 foreign citizens lived in Italy, representing about 8.9% of the total population. These figures exclude naturalized foreign-born residents (about 1,620,000 foreigners acquired Italian citizenship from 1999 to 2020, of whom 130,000 did so in 2020) as well as illegal immigrants, the so-called clandestini, whose numbers, difficult to determine, are thought to be at least 670,000.Elisabeth Rosenthal, "Italy cracks down on illegal immigration ". The Boston Globe. 16 May 2008.
In 2021, around 6,260,000 people residing in Italy have an immigration background (around the 10.6% of the total Italian population).
Starting from the early 1980s, Italy began to attract substantial flows of foreign immigrants. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union, large waves of migration originated from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova and Poland). Another source of immigration is neighbouring North Africa (in particular, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia), with soaring arrivals as a consequence of the Arab Spring. Furthermore, in recent years, growing migration fluxes from Asia-Pacific (notably China,"Milan police in Chinatown clash ". BBC News. 13 April 2007. South Asia and the Philippines) and Latin America have been recorded.
Since the expansion of the European Union, the most recent wave of migration has been from surrounding European states, particularly Eastern Europe, replacing North Africa as the major immigration area.
Romanians made up the largest foreign community in the country (1,073,196; around 10% of them being ethnic Romani people"EUROPE: Home to Roma, And No Place for Them". IPS ipsnews.net. ) followed by Albanians (416,229), Moroccans (412,346) and Chinese (308,984). As of 2024, foreign citizens' origins were subdivided as follows: Europe (46.22%), Asia (23.41%), Africa (22.69%), The Americas (7.64%) and Oceania (0.04%).
The distribution of foreigners is largely uneven in Italy: in 2020, 61.2% of foreign citizens lived in northern Italy (in particular 36.1% in northwestern Italy and 25.1% in northeastern Italy), 24.2% in central Italy, 10.8% in southern Italy and 3.9% in Insular Italy.
The children born in Italy to foreign mothers were 102,000 in 2012, 99,000 in 2013 and 97,000 in 2014.
Some commentators tend to over estimate the incidence of immigration on crime in Italy, for example suggesting that immigration in Italy is a threat to security because of the higher incidence of convictions among immigrants than natives. However, the most rigorous causal analysis on the effects of immigration on crime in Italy does not confirm this. Bianchi, Buonanno and Pinotti (2012) implement an instrumental variable estimation on Italian data to show that "immigration increases only the incidence of robberies, while leaving unaffected all other types of crime. Since robberies represent a very minor fraction of all criminal offenses, the effect on the overall crime rate is not significantly different from zero."
Statistics
On foreigners only, for more information dealing with foreigners who have subsequently acquired Italian citizenship refer to Eurostat site. + Total foreign resident population on 1 January Year Population 2002 1,341,209 (2.35%) 2003 1,549,373 (2.70%) 2004 1,990,159 (3.45%) 2005 2,402,157 (4.14%) 2006 2,670,514 (4.59%) 2007 2,938,922 (5.03%) 2008 3,432,651 (5.84%) 2009 3,891,295 (6.58%) 2010 4,235,059 (7.14%) 2011 4,570,317 (7.70%) 2012 4,052,081 (6.81%)Statistics for 2011 at istat.it Accessed 30 October 2017 2013 4,387,721 (7.28%)Statistics for 2013 at istat.it Accessed 30 October 2017 2014 4,922,085 (8.10%)Statistics for 2013 at istat.it Accessed 30 October 2017 2015 5,014,437 (8.25%) 2016 5,026,153 (8.28%)Statistics for 2015 at istat.it Accessed 30 October 2017 2017 5,047,028 (8.33%)Statistics for 2017 at istat.it Accessed 4 April 2018 2018 5,144,440 (8.51%) 2019 4,996,158 (8.35%)20205,039,637 (8.45%)20215,171,894 (8.73%)20225,030,716 (8.52%)20235,141,341 (8.71%)20245,253.658 (8.9%)20255,371,251 (9.1%)