Romania had in 2024 the highest share of emigrants among EU states, with 24% or 4.6 million people living abroad, as well as one of the highest volumes of remittances relative to GDP, namely 2.8% in 2023, according to an analysis by Alpha Bank.
Romanians who left the country sent back around RON 13 billion (EUR 2.6 billion) in 2023. A year later, a quarter of Romania’s population was living abroad, up from 14.7% of the population (4.2 million) in 2010. Next in line in terms of the volume of emigrants are Croatia, Bulgaria, and Portugal, and in terms of the volume of remittances, the first place is held by Croatia, with 6.2% of GDP, followed by Romania, Luxembourg, and Hungary, the report says, cited by Ziarul Financiar.
Among the countries in the region, significant emigration was recorded by Bulgaria and Poland, with the number of emigrants representing 19.4% (1.2 million) and 12.5% of the population (4.6 million) in 2024, respectively. In the Czech Republic and Hungary, the number of emigrants was lower, at 5.4% and 5.6% of the population. Only in the Czech Republic did the number of emigrants relative to the population decrease compared to 2010.
Sending money back home and living abroad are correlated in the study. The same source defines remittances as including personal transfers and compensation of employees. The volume of remittances received relative to GDP ranged between 1% in Poland, 1.3% in the Czech Republic, 2.3% in Bulgaria, and 2.4% in Hungary in 2023.
Analysts underline that long-distance emigration from Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria is characterized by the continuous increase of the emigrant population, while border emigration from the Czech Republic and Hungary has remained constant. Between 1990 and 2024, the number of emigrants increased 4.6 times in Romania and doubled in Bulgaria and Poland, with the departures of new emigrants exceeding the number of those who returned to the country. In contrast, in the Czech Republic and Hungary, returns offset new departures.
This shows that only long-distance emigration encourages the increase in the duration of emigration, which weakens ties with families at home and remittances. The data show that long-distance emigrants have lower incomes and lower remittance potential compared to border emigrants.
In the period 2012–2023, the structure by main destinations – EU, non-EU European countries, and America – of the emigrant population from the region registered different evolutions. In Romania, the share of emigrants in the EU decreased (from 84% to 74%) and in America (from 9% to 6%) and increased in non-EU European countries (from 4% to 17%) mainly to the UK and Switzerland.
Despite the changes in the destinations of emigrants from the region, the main source of remittances received by the countries in the region remained the EU. The share of remittances originating from the EU in the total increased in all countries of the region in 2024 compared to 2012, to 70% from 61% in Romania, to 72% from 67% in Poland, to 67% from 63% in Bulgaria, to 91% from 82% in Hungary, and to 82% from 71% in the Czech Republic.
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