Foreigners in Italy and Italians Abroad: 5.56 Million and 6.6 Million, Counted by Two Different Registers

Two registers, two reference dates, one moment

ISTAT publishes the two stocks in different reports months apart, which hides how close their reference dates are. The foreign-resident figure comes from the Indicatori demografici report of 31 March 2026, which gives the resident population on 1 January 2026. The Italians-abroad figure comes from the Statistica Today release of 3 September 2026, which gives the stock on 31 December 2025. One day separates the two dates, so the stocks describe the same moment.

Both figures are early estimates. ISTAT calls the January 2026 population data "dati provvisori" (provisional data) and says the final figure will follow the statistical realignment with the permanent census. It calls the Italians-abroad count a "stima preliminare" (preliminary estimate) and says the final figure for 31 December 2025 will be released in December 2026 with the census results. Any article quoting either number in 2027 should check for the final release first.

Read together, the two releases give a simple picture of Italian citizenship. ISTAT counts 53,383,000 Italian citizens living in Italy on 1 January 2026. Adding the 6,603,579 registered abroad gives about 59.99 million Italian citizens in total, of whom 11.0% live abroad, roughly one in nine (our calculation; a scale indicator that adds two registers). Measured against Italy's total resident population of 58,943,000, the abroad stock equals 11.2% (our calculation). That ratio compares two registers and is a scale indicator only. No Italian resident is counted in both.

5.56 million foreign residents: what the number is

On 1 January 2026 the resident population of foreign citizenship was "5 milioni e 560mila unità", up 188,000 or 3.5%, ISTAT reported. Foreign citizens made up 9.4% of the population. The total population of 58,943,000 was "stabile" (stable), down 636 people on a year earlier.

The comparison base matters. ISTAT's first release for 1 January 2025, published in March 2025, put foreign residents at 5,422,000, or 9.2% of the population. In December 2025 the census count for 31 December 2024 replaced it with 5,371,251, or 9.1%. The 2026 report's growth of 188,000 is consistent with the census figure. Measured against the superseded first release, the same stock would appear to grow by only 138,000, or 2.5% (our calculation). The census revision removed about 51,000 foreign residents from the 2025 base (our calculation). Older provisional series and the census-revised series should not be mixed in any multi-year comparison.

ISTAT's explanation of the population's stability is specific. A natural balance of about minus 296,000 (355,000 births against 652,000 deaths in 2025) was offset by net migration with abroad of about plus 296,000. ISTAT says migration was enough "a compensare pressoché integralmente il deficit dovuto alla dinamica naturale" (to offset almost entirely the deficit due to natural change). Foreign citizens contributed net immigration of about 348,000. Italian citizens contributed a net outflow of about 53,000. The often-repeated line that immigration is the only thing keeping Italy's population up goes further than ISTAT's wording. ISTAT describes an offset that leaves the population flat, and acquisitions of citizenship move people from the foreign count to the Italian count without changing the total.

Foreign residents are concentrated in the North and Centre. Foreign citizens make up 11.7% of residents in the North and 11.5% in the Centre, against 5.0% in the South and islands, according to ISTAT. Romania is the largest citizenship, at 19.6% of foreign residents on 31 December 2024 in the census release, followed by Albania and Morocco at 7.7% each, China at 5.8% and Ukraine at 5.3%. The census release gives shares; counts by citizenship come from ISMU's and Tuttitalia's compilations of ISTAT data, for example 1,053,042 Romanians on 1 January 2025. ISTAT's 2026 report gives no citizenship breakdown for 1 January 2026.

Residence permits measure something else. ISTAT counts 4,030,016 non-EU citizens holding a valid permit on 31 December 2025, up from 3,810,741, and 426,956 new permits issued in 2025, up 47.2% on 290,119. Family reasons accounted for 168,733 new permits and asylum or protection for 135,831. The permit stock excludes EU citizens such as Romanians and Poles and follows the permit file, a different source from the population register. Subtracting it from the 5.56 million does not give the number of EU citizens, and the two figures should not be compared as a gap.

Against the rest of the EU, Italy is fourth on numbers, and its share of foreign citizens is close to the EU level. Eurostat's Statistics Explained article on population diversity, dated 13 February 2026, counts 5.4 million non-nationals and 6.9 million foreign-born residents in Italy on 1 January 2025. Only Germany (12.4 million), Spain (6.9 million) and France (6.5 million) had more non-nationals. Eurostat gives no percentage for Italy. Against ISTAT's census population of 58.94 million, the Eurostat counts give about 9.2% non-nationals and 11.7% foreign-born (our calculation). The foreign-born count is larger because it includes naturalised Italians and Italians born abroad. Across the EU, Eurostat reports 30.6 million non-EU citizens, 6.8% of the population, and 14.1 million citizens of another member state. Together these come to about 9.9% of the EU's 450.6 million residents (our calculation). Italy's share of foreign citizens is therefore near the EU level.

6.6 million Italians abroad: who they are

The stock of Italians abroad is mostly a population born outside Italy. ISTAT's census-based figure for 31 December 2024 is that "solo il 30,3%" (only 30.3%) of Italians resident abroad were born in Italy. The other 69.7% were born abroad (our calculation). The average age of those born in Italy was 54, and of those born abroad 39, according to the same release.

The largest communities follow the old emigration routes. On 31 December 2025 Argentina had 1,030,643 Italian citizens on the register, Germany 851,409, Brazil 748,463, Switzerland 667,514, the United Kingdom 508,168, France 475,733 and the United States 347,542, all preliminary. ISTAT puts 53.1% of the stock in Europe and 34.3% in Central and South America.

ISTAT's accounting table shows where the 2025 growth came from. The stock rose from 6,420,678 to 6,603,579, an increase of 182,901. Citizenship acquisitions recorded abroad added 127,477. Net migration, meaning people transferring their residence from Italy minus those returning, added 52,553. Births abroad added 16,345 and deaths removed 13,474. The listed components sum exactly to the change (our calculation). Acquisitions supplied 69.7% of the growth, net migration 28.7% and the natural balance 1.6% (our calculation). In 2025 the diaspora grew mostly through citizenships recorded abroad. Net migration from Italy explains less than a third of it. The pattern was weaker in 2024, when acquisitions supplied 48.7% of a 282,340 rise that also included a statistical adjustment of 49,288 (our calculation from ISTAT's table). The rules on recognition, and how the 2025 decree has changed them, are the subject of our earlier analysis of the citizenship ruling in numbers.

The direction of the migration flow causes confusion because ISTAT describes it from two sides. In the Italians-abroad release, the net balance "resta quindi positivo" (therefore remains positive) at about 53,000, because expatriations raise the number of Italians abroad. In the demographic indicators report, the balance of Italian citizens' migration with abroad "si attesta sul valore di -53mila" (stands at minus 53,000), because the same people leave Italy's resident population. Both statements are correct. From Italy's side, 2025 saw a net loss of 52,553 Italian citizens, down from 82,588 in 2024.

The fall in expatriations is partly a correction. Transfers of residence abroad dropped 22.7%, from 141,056 in 2024 to 109,004 in 2025. ISTAT says the decline should be read in light of "l'eccezionale numero di iscrizioni all'AIRE registrato nel 2024" (the exceptional number of AIRE registrations recorded in 2024). Returns fell 3.4%, to 56,451. Of the 2025 expatriates, 36.2% were aged 25 to 34 and 75.5% moved to another European country, with Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and France the main destinations.

Two other counts exist for the same register, and they differ for clear reasons. Fondazione Migrantes, in its Rapporto Italiani nel Mondo 2025, counts 6,412,752 AIRE registrants on 1 January 2025. That is 7,926 fewer than ISTAT's final 6,420,678 for the day before (our calculation), a 0.1% difference between two compilations of the same register. An Interior Ministry decree, as reported by the news agency AGI on 22 January 2026, gives 6,630,284 Italians resident abroad on 31 December 2025. That count is 26,705 above ISTAT's preliminary figure (our calculation). The decree also fixes the number of Italian voters abroad, and we did not open it. A 2026 edition of the Migrantes report had not appeared in the searches we ran on 6 November 2026.

The "7 million" figures belong to other registers or to no register

A larger number appears in official communications. The foreign ministry's press release of 11 June 2026, announcing the conference of Italy's consuls, refers to "oltre 7 milioni di cittadini italiani residenti all'estero" (more than 7 million Italian citizens resident abroad). The release names no speaker and no source. Both register counts published for the end of 2025 fall between 6.60 and 6.64 million.

An earlier version reached the press through a council of Italians abroad. The Brazilian site Italianismo reported on 6 October 2025 that Maria Chiara Prodi, secretary-general of the CGIE, said Undersecretary Giorgio Silli had given the council what were described as updated numbers of AIRE registrants, 7.3 million. Italianismo says the figure came from a ministry report to the council signed by Antonio Tajani; we could not find that report. No AIRE figure published by ISTAT, Migrantes or the Interior Ministry comes close.

A plausible explanation exists but could not be confirmed. The site Progetto Radici reported on 9 September 2026 that the foreign ministry's statistical yearbook records more than 7.1 million people in consular files in 2024, and warned that its definition "non coincidono perfettamente" (do not coincide perfectly) with AIRE, so the two should not be used as if they described the same population. We could not open the yearbook table. Until the ministry publishes a definition, 7 million should not be presented as a count of Italian citizens resident abroad.

Where the two stocks meet tourism

The clearest official link between foreign residents and tourism is in the workforce. The Ministry of Labour's summary of its 16th annual report on foreigners in the Italian labour market, dated July 2026, lists "Alberghi e ristoranti" (hotels and restaurants) at 19.2% among the sectors with the highest incidence of foreign employed people in 2025. Across all sectors, foreign workers number more than 2.5 million, or 10.7% of the employed. On those two figures, foreign workers' share in hotels and restaurants is about 1.8 times their share of all employment (our calculation). The summary does not name the survey, define the sector's boundaries or say whether self-employed workers are included. The underlying table should be checked before the figure is used for accommodation alone.

The diaspora overlaps with Italy's main source markets. Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France and the United States are both large inbound markets and large Italian communities, as covered in our profiles of German visitors to Italy and American visitors in 2026. The Bank of Italy's border survey, the main source on foreign visitors' spending, records travellers as residents or non-residents under the balance-of-payments rule. On that rule, an Italian citizen living in Munich and visiting family in Calabria would count as a non-resident traveller. The survey pages we opened publish no split of non-resident travellers by citizenship and no count of trips to visit relatives. No official source says how many visits the 6.6 million Italians abroad make to Italy, or how many of Italy's foreign residents travel within the country.

The population base also shapes the denominators this series uses. Ratios such as tourist nights per resident, the basis of our ranking of Italy's regions by nights per resident, divide by the population register, which includes the 5.56 million foreign residents and excludes the 6.6 million Italians abroad. A region's ratio does not change meaning when its foreign population grows, but comparisons with older years should use the census-revised population.

The figures that do claim to measure the diaspora as travellers are the government's roots-tourism numbers. The foreign ministry's roots-tourism page says ENIT counted 5.8 million roots travellers in 1997 (the English version of the page says 8 million), that the number reached 6.6 million in 2024, up 13.8%, and that it could reach 7.4 million in 2026. It puts their 2024 spending at about €5 billion, up 34.4%, and the catchment at nearly 80 million people. A ministry press release of 14 June 2026 repeats the 6.6 million and 7.4 million, says spending is "destinata a superare" (set to exceed) €5.5 billion without giving a year, and refers to more than 80 million Italians and people of Italian descent. Neither page names a source or method for the 2024 to 2026 figures. Neither page states what the 13.8% is measured against. It happens to equal the change from the 1997 estimate of 5.8 million to 6.6 million (our calculation), while the spending rise beside it is stated as year on year.

The 2024 figures appear to trace to a private estimate. The news agency 9Colonne reported, on a 9 January date with no year printed, that a study by Assoturismo Confesercenti with the Florence research centre CST put 2024 roots-tourism arrivals at more than 6.6 million, with about 34.4 million nights and about €5 billion in spending. It called them "prime stime" (first estimates), projected spending above €5.5 billion in 2026, and described no method. On those numbers, a roots traveller stayed about 5.2 nights and spent about €760 (our calculation, from a private estimate). How a trip was classed as roots travel is not published. Treat the series as an industry estimate.

Claims checked

The four cards share a pattern. Each figure is larger than the register count it competes with, and none comes with a published source document or method. A smaller trap sits inside ISTAT's own reporting cycle. The first release for 1 January 2025, 5,422,000 foreign residents, has been revised, and comparing the new 5.56 million with it understates 2025's growth by about 50,000.

What the data cannot say

Three gaps stop the numbers from answering the questions travellers and businesses ask. ISTAT's 2026 report gives no regional, city or citizenship breakdown for 1 January 2026, so local figures still rest on the 2024 census and third-party compilations of it. No official source counts trips to Italy by Italians resident abroad, or splits foreign visitors by citizenship, so the diaspora's travel cannot be separated from the source-market totals in which it sits. And the roots-tourism series has no published method, so its growth cannot be tested.

A fourth gap is definitional. The 19.2% foreign share in hotels and restaurants comes from a summary page that does not state its survey, its sector boundaries or its treatment of the self-employed. It is the best official indicator of how much the hospitality workforce depends on foreign residents, and it still needs the full report behind it before anyone builds a staffing estimate on it.

Several releases due in the coming months will tighten the picture. ISTAT plans the final count of Italians resident abroad for 31 December 2025 in December 2026, alongside the census results. ISTAT gives no date for the realigned population figures for 1 January 2026. A 2026 edition of the Migrantes report, if it follows the pattern of its predecessor, would give a fresh AIRE count for 1 January 2026. ISTAT's next permit release, on the pattern of this year's, would arrive in October 2027. None of these is likely to add the missing tourism link, which would need trip data by citizenship or a published motive split from the Bank of Italy.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travellers meet both stocks without seeing them in the statistics. Roughly one hotel or restaurant worker in five is a foreign citizen, on the Ministry of Labour's 2025 summary figure, whose sector definition is not published, and the share of foreign residents is more than twice as high in the North and Centre as in the South. Travellers of Italian descent who plan a family trip are travelling in a market no official source has measured; the government's roots-tourism numbers are estimates without a method. For anyone thinking of staying longer, residence and citizenship follow separate rules. Nothing here is legal advice. Check the current rules with an Italian consulate or a qualified lawyer.

Tourism businesses and investors should treat the diaspora as a market with reach and no hard count. The communities in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France and the United States overlap with Italy's largest inbound markets, but no official source splits those markets by citizenship. Any business case built on 6.6 million roots travellers or 80 million descendants rests on unsourced numbers. The labour side is better measured. A sector where foreign workers hold 19.2% of jobs is partly exposed to permit policy, to the extent its foreign workers are non-EU citizens, a split the summary does not give. New permits for work rose to nearly 59,000 in 2025 against 426,956 permits overall. For high-income movers, the residence side is covered in our look at who moves for Italy's flat tax. What would change this assessment is a published motive split in the Bank of Italy survey, or ISTAT trip data by citizenship.

Journalists and analysts can cite the figures in the box above with their dates and status. Do not write that Italy has more than 7 million citizens abroad, that AIRE holds 7.3 million, or that 80 million people of Italian descent are a counted population. Do not present the roots-tourism 13.8% as annual growth, because its baseline is not stated. Do not compare the 2026 foreign-resident figure with the superseded 5,422,000, do not subtract the 4.03 million permit holders from the 5.56 million residents, and do not describe immigration as the only thing keeping Italy's population up. The series finding this article adds is that in 2025 Italy's diaspora grew mainly through citizenships recorded abroad, which supplied 69.7% of the increase (48.7% in 2024), while the official statistics still say nothing about how either stock travels.