The Bulgarians who returned to their homeland and abandoned life abroad last year are more than those who chose to leave it. This indicates the trend when carefully reading the NSI’s annual report on “Population and demographic processes 2023”, which the national statistics office publishes on its website.
The numbers show that 17,017 compatriots returned home from emigration, and at the same time, 11,913 Bulgarian citizens emigrated abroad.
The comparison with the data for the years back to 2012 shows a tendency to decrease the number of emigrants at the expense of the increasing group of people who permanently return to Bulgaria. The trend has been more visible since 2018 and especially during the years of the coronavirus pandemic, when many businesses abroad closed production and went bankrupt, and the measures against contagion abroad were much stricter than those at home.
It was in the first year of COVID-19 that the largest number of Bulgarians came from abroad – in 2020, they were over 24 thousand people, and the trend will continue in the next two years. But that’s all – 24,442 Bulgarians left the country in the coming year 2021.
The data for those who left Bulgaria in 2023 are almost identical to those for 2022.
– there were only 59 fewer emigrants last year compared to the previous year. Compared to the period 10-12 years ago, returning Bulgarians are triple and quadruple their number in several consecutive years – 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Year Bulgarian citizens who left the country
• 2012 13640
• 2013 16036
• 2014 23849
• 2015 24487
• 2016 25795
• 2017 26992
• 2018 31263
• 2019 37931
• 2020 3658
• 2021 24442
• 2022 11972
• 2023 11913
Our compatriots who left Bulgaria last year are mostly young, aged between 20 and 34, according to the NSI website.
They went to countries outside the European Union – 2,632 people, and only 682 chose to leave Bulgaria to go to a member state.
Year Bulgarian citizens settled in the country
• 2012 4964
• 2013 4682
• 2014 9502
• 2015 10722
• 2016 9254
• 2017 13060
• 2018 16169
• 2019 23555
• 2020 24007
• 2021 22087
• 2022 19032
• 2023 17017
People aged 35-39 and from the age group 60-64 have returned to Bulgaria.
In total, in 2023, 56,807 people came to live in our country, of which 17,017 are Bulgarian citizens, and the remaining over 39,000 people are foreigners.
Foreign citizens are dominated by those who came from countries outside the EU, but then left – they are 32,198 in total.
The share of immigrants from Turkey is the highest – 25 percent, Ukraine – 17.5 percent and the Russian Federation – 9.7 percent.
The mechanical increase in population is 41,580 people, divided almost equally between men and women.
Bulgarians prefer to emigrate to Germany, Great Britain and France, NSI data also show. Men predominate among those who changed their current address from Bulgaria abroad – they are 60.9%.
Germany, as a destination for emigration, is preferred by 18.1 percent, the United Kingdom – 16.9 percent and France – 8.4 percent.
However, NSI data was collected only according to officially declared changes with registrations of the current address before the relevant authorities.
#Returnees #outnumber #left
