Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Immigration to Switzerland drops slightly in first half of 2024

crowd
The Swiss population has grown steadily over the past few decades to reach some 9 million. Keystone / Urs Flueeler

Net immigration to Switzerland fell by 6,237 year-on-year in the first half of 2024 to 40,963 people, Swiss authorities said on Thursday.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

At the end of June, a total of 2,338,710 foreign nationals were living in the country, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) said on Thursday.

In total, 80,684 people immigrated as permanent foreign residents between January and June 2024, according to SEM. This was 5.9% fewer than in the same period last year.

Immigration from European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) member states fell by 7.2% to 57,330. Third-country nationals – i.e. not from the EU or EFTA – accounted for 23,354 people, 2.4% fewer than in 2023.

+ Read more: immigration disrupts Swiss political landscape

Family reunification accounted for 24.3% of immigrants, SEM said – 9.2% fewer than in the same period last year. Some 17% were family members of a Swiss national.

According to SEM, 35,184 people emigrated during the same period, or 732 more than in the same period in 2023. Some 27,017 EU/EFTA nationals (+667 people) and 8,167 third-country nationals (+65 people) also left Switzerland.

Translated from German by DeepL/dos

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Most Read
Swiss Abroad

Most Discussed

News

Swiss Steel cuts 800 jobs

More

Swiss Steel to cut 800 jobs

This content was published on Steelmaker Swiss Steel Group is cutting 800 full-time jobs in Switzerland and abroad.

Read more: Swiss Steel to cut 800 jobs

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR