British citizens in EU countries 2019

In 2019, there were approximately 302,020 British citizens living in Spain, with a further 293,061 in Ireland and 176,672 in France. By comparison, there were only 604 British people living in Slovenia, the fewest of any European Union member state. As a member of the European Union, British citizens had the right to live and work in any EU member state. Although these rights were lost for most British citizens after the UK left the EU in 2020, Britons already living in EU states were able to largely retain their previous rights of residence.

EU citizens living in the UK

EU citizens living in the UK face the same dilemma that British nationals did regarding their legal status after Brexit. In the same year, there were 902,000 Polish citizens, 404,000 Romanians, and 322,000 people from the Republic of Ireland living in the UK in that year, along with almost 2 million EU citizens from the other 24 EU member states. To retain their rights after Brexit, EU citizens living in the UK were able to apply for the EU settlement scheme. As of March 2024, there have been around 7.9 million applications to this scheme, with Romanian and Polish nationals the most common nationality at 1.71 million applications, and 1.23 million applications respectively.

Is support for Brexit waning in 2024?

As of May 2024, the share of people in the UK who think leaving the EU was the wrong decision stood at 55 percent, compared with 31 percent who think it was the correct choice. In general, support for Brexit has gradually eroded since April 2021, when 46 percent of people supported Brexit, compared with 43 percent who regretted it. What people think Britain's relationship with the EU should be is, however, still unclear. A survey from November 2023 indicated that just 31 percent thought the UK should rejoin the EU, with a further 11 percent supporting rejoining the single market, but not the EU. Only ten percent of respondents were satisfied with the current relationship, while nine percent wished to reduce ties even further.

Estimated number of British citizens living in the European Union in 2019, by member state

Characteristic	Number of British citizens in thousands
Spain	302,020
Ireland	293,061
France	176,672
Germany	98,553
Italy	65,645
Netherlands	55,445
Cyprus	37,684
Poland	36,585
Sweden	30,265
Belgium	23,231
Malta	23,213
Denmark	21,837
Portugal	18,695
Greece	17,230
Romania	16,828
Austria	13,000
Hungary	11,111
Bulgaria	9,992
Finland	7,948
Slovakia	7,267
Luxembourg	5,852
Czechia	5,327
Lithuania	4,568
Latvia	2,985
Estonia	789
Croatia	618
Slovenia	604