There were 12,927 Italians officially registered as living in Portugal at the end of 2017, up 4,407 in a year but the French have outstripped them, with 15,319, outnumbered by the British with 22,431.
Jorge Malheiros, who holds a Doctorate in Human Geography from the University of Lisbon, explains that immigration has been diversifying, not only in terms of nationalities but also the causes behind the big move.
"In the case of the Italians, one of the most interesting aspects has to do with young people who can not find work in Italy and, here, linguistic and cultural proximity is important.”
Italian, French and British are the EU nationalities that grew the most and contributed the most to the increase of EU residents in the country, 15.8% more at the end of 2017 than a year earlier.
People continue to arrive in Portugal from all over the European Community. In the 12-months to the end of 2017, the number of Swedes increased by 35.4% to 3,564, Irish 29.7% to 1,337, Belgians 23% to 3,508, Poles 20.4% to 1,898, Finns 16.5% to 1,153, Dutch 14.6% to 7,837 and the Spanish 12.5% to 12,526.
Malheiros says the entry of EU citizens - mainly those from the countries prior to the 2004 enlargement - has always been going on, even during the economic crisis, but in recent years there has been a significant increase.
The reasons are: education, employment, lifestyle and the good image of the country as being quiet, growing and well connected to Europe.
European pensioners continue to arrive, "This group enjoys tax benefits, climate, food, good and services and the price of housing that has been cheap for two years - even now it costs less than in Paris or London."
There is another group of immigrants, those who toil away in international call centres that require language skills to serve Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese customers.
Then there’s the ‘lifestyle immigrants,’ who settle in tranquil rural areas in the Alentejo or Beira Interior.
The last published 'Immigration, Borders and Asylum Report' stated that, "The entry of France and Italy into the structure of the ten most representative nationalities seems to confirm the impact of Portugal on foreign citizens from European Union countries, such as the perception of the country as a safe place as well as tax benefits under the non-habitual resident scheme."
Other nationalities living in Portugal include Brazilians, (85,426) Cape Verdeans (34,986,) Ukrainians (32,453), Romanias (30,750) and Chinese (23,197) making up the top five non-EU foreign nationalities.
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A reader spotted the lack of data published on the German population in Portugal:
Liveaboard: "What, no Germans? In my area, it sometimes seems German is the second language."
Doctor Malheiros replied as follows:
"Yes, there is an important number of Germans. Registered in SEF statistics, we find 11,160 (less than Brits, French, Italians and Spanish, just to mention some EU nationalities) and an inflow of 1,913 in 2017 (lower than the aforementioned groups).
As in the case of the other EU countries from Western Europe, the number of Germans increased substantially from 2016 to 2017 (from 10,030 to 11,160 and the inflow from 1,587 to 1913.)
