Brexit didn’t just impact UK citizens living in Europe, Europeans also had to apply to settle in the UK. Data to 31st March 2021 shows more than 470,000 Italians applied through the EU settlement scheme.
On 27th May, the UK government released the latest figures for those who apply to settle in the UK under the EU Settlement scheme. Since the scheme was announced, the UK has received just under 5 million applications.
500,000+ Italian citizen applications
The UK government site provided a breakdown of the applications by nationality. Italian citizens are the third most represented nationalities behind Polish and Romanian.
In total, there were 4,910,690 applications received from EU nationals, 50,060 received from other EEA and Swiss nationals and 340,650 received from non-EEA nationals. The nationalities with the highest number of applications received were:
Polish (975,180)
Romanian (918,270)
Italian (500,550)
Portuguese (376,440)
Spanish (320,850)
The top five nationalities combined represent around 58% of applications received.
The majority of Italian citizens applied to stay in England (93%), followed by Scotland and Wales.
Top five nationalities and countries applied to settle in
Source: Table EUSS_01, EU Settlement Scheme quarterly statistics tables
95% of Italian applications processed
Of the 500,550 applications received, 478,850 or 95% are complete.
Only 2% of Italian applications have been refused so far. This is in line with the majority of EU countries.
EU and other EEA and Swiss nationals accounted for four out of five (83%) of the 55,950 EU Settlement Scheme refusals, with non-EEA nationals accounting for just under a fifth of refusals (17%).
London and south-east come top
The majority of Italian applications (57%) were from London and the south-east – 230,990 and 50,610 respectively.
There were 20,090 applications from Scotland, which equates to 4% of the total applications by Italian citizens. Wales received 5,130 applications and Northern Ireland 1,810.
Majority are of working age
The majority of applications were for Italians of working age (18-64), 381,880 (76%), followed by under 18s – 96,040 (19%). There were 22,620 (4.5%) applications from those aged 65 and over.
The closing date for applications is 30th June 2021.
