In the period November 2024 - October 2025, 58,450 Bulgarians left Germany. Although our compatriots remain the third largest group among European migrants in the opposite direction, the inflow fails to compensate for the outflow.
This is shown by data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. As a result of the two processes, the number of Bulgarians in Germany decreased by 11,930 people in the 12 months of the study, reports "Sega". The statistics are in line with the trends observed in recent years of migration in Europe reversing its direction.
This has been visible for some time in our demographic statistics. The data for 2025 will be announced in the coming months, but those for the previous year 2024 show that every third person who came to live in Bulgaria from abroad has Bulgarian citizenship. In 2024, 52,189 people changed their usual place of residence from abroad to Bulgaria, of which 51.5% are citizens of non-EU countries and 34.9% have Bulgarian citizenship. 13.6% are EU citizens, writes BGNES.
The German Statistical Office collects migration data based on changed residence, excluding people who moved for less than three months and people who change two addresses in Germany within 6 months. Since the statistics track address registrations, not the number of people, it probably includes people who have changed their address more than once. Even so, the trends are curious.
In no month of the period November 2024 - October 2025 was the net migration of Bulgarians in Germany positive, i.e. in no month was the inflow greater than the outflow. For Romanians, for example, there are months with negative net migration and months with positive. To a lesser extent, this is also observed among Poles and other nationalities in Europe.
The Poles in Germany have decreased the most - by 14,875 people, and Bulgarians are in second place. There is also a fairly large decrease among Croatians - by 10,676 people. The next in terms of negative net migration are Romanians - by 5,333 people less, Greeks - by 2,010 people, and Hungarians - by with 1,056 people.
Despite the outflow, Bulgarians remain the third largest group in terms of incoming migration to Germany after Romanians and Poles, with Romanians far ahead of the others. According to our statistics, over 700,000 Bulgarians live in other countries in Europe. Our diaspora is the largest in Germany - 371,128 people as of January 1, 2024. In second place is Spain with 112,834 Bulgarian citizens living there. 60,494 Bulgarians live in the Netherlands, 48,659 - in Italy, 13,021 - in the Czech Republic.