The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) released a report on immigration in 2016 and 2017 on Wednesday, showing that some 110,500 Croatian nationals had immigrated into the country in those two years.

Nearly 57,500 Croatians had settled in Germany in 2016, and another 53,000 in 2017. This means that 2017 was the first year on record since 2006 that the number of Croatians immigrating to Germany had decreased from the previous year.

In 2006 little over 8,500 Croatians had taken up residence in Germany and their number has been steadily increasing ever since. Larger spikes in the numbers of immigrants from Croatia were recorded in 2013, the year when Croatia joined the European Union, when the number of newly-arrived Croatians was 25,200, and again in 2015, when Germany moved to lift labour market restrictions for Croatians, when little over 57,400 Croatians moved to Germany.

Between Croatia’s EU membership in July 2013 and the end of 2017 around 189,600 Croatians emigrated to Germany in total. 2018 data is not available yet.

The number of Croatian nationals who have been granted German citizenship has also increased sharply since Croatia joined the EU. This can be explained by the fact that Germany allows dual citizenship for EU citizens.

In 2017, some 2,900 Croatian nationals were granted German citizenship, with all of them retaining Croatian citizenship.

Compared with the number of immigrants from other EU member states, Croatians were the fourth largest immigrant group in Germany in 2017, after nationals of Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria.

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