Press release No. 227 of 30 June 2017
WIESBADEN – The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that a good 10.0 million people holding only foreign citizenship were registered in the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR) at the end of 2016. This is the highest number of foreigners ever recorded in Germany since the AZR was established in 1967. Since 2014, that is, in 2015 and 2016, the number of foreigners rose by 1.886 million (+23.1%). Net immigration (balance of arrivals and departures) contributed most to this development. In 2015, net immigration was 1.535 million people. The relevant figure in 2016 was 482,300 people, which was by just under 70% lower than in the previous year. The surplus of births over deaths of the foreign population was 98,700 in the period of 2015 and 2016. In addition, 229,800 people were deleted from the register since the beginning of 2015 due to their naturalisation.
More results, especially at the level of administrative districts, are contained in Fachserie 1, Reihe 2 Ausländische Bevölkerung. Basic data and long time series are available in tables Statistics of foreigners (12521) in the GENESIS-Online database