Every second child in Luxembourg is a foreigner

According to Eurostat, in 2024, 7.5 million children and adolescents under the age of 18 living in European Union countries do not have the citizenship of their country of residence. This is 9.4% of the total number of minors, a figure that illustrates the scale of migration and demographic shifts within the EU.

Luxembourg is the absolute record holder: the share of stateless minors in the country is 45.7%, which is almost five times higher than the EU average. Austria (21.9%) and Malta (19.3%) follow. The opposite picture is observed in Slovakia (0.4%), Poland (0.8%) and Romania (0.9%).

The distribution by age groups among "non-citizens" is interesting: 27% are under 5 years old, 29.8% are between 5 and 9 years old, 27.7% are between 10 and 14 years old and 15.6% are between 15 and 17 years old. This indicates that a significant proportion are children of migrants who were born already in Europe but have not obtained local citizenship.

However, there is an important caveat: Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and Liechtenstein did not include refugees from Ukraine under temporary protection in their statistics. The data for France, Poland and Romania are also preliminary or estimated.

These statistics cover all categories of "non-citizens": citizens of other EU countries (excluding the country of residence), third-country nationals, stateless persons and those whose nationality is unknown.