Foreigners Are Now Over 6 Percent of Czech Population

The share of foreigners living legally in the Czech Republic exceeded six percent for the first time last year, according to a government report on migration and integration of foreigners.

Over the past three years, the number of registered foreigners in the country has increased by 100,000 people. Some 660,849 foreigners were living legally in Czechia at the end of last year.

The number of applicants for international protection in the Czech Republic rose by a fifth to 1411 people last year. Ukrainians, Georgians and Afghans applied the most.

After the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan last year, the Czech Republic welcomed almost 200 citizens. According to last year’s information, about 150 applied for asylum or supplementary protection in the country.

Since the beginning of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in February this year, the Czech authorities have issued almost 404,000 temporary protection visas to Ukrainian citizens.

Slovaks continued to predominate among foreigners from EU countries, while two-thirds of foreigners with a residence permit were from countries outside the EU, mostly Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia.

According to the report, the increase in the number of foreigners was mainly due to economic migration, with the state issuing 185,000 short-term visas for the purposes of employment alone.

In terms of illegal immigration, Czech police discovered 11,170 foreigners in the country illegally in 2022, which is a year-on-year increase of 58 percent. This is the highest figure in the last 14 years.

Almost 80 percent of the persons intercepted were residents of Afghanistan, Syria and Morocco.

According to the 2021 Census of Population, Housing and Dwellings, the Czech Republic had a population of 10.494 million at the beginning of 2021, rising by 21,900 over the year.

However, the number of deaths increased significantly for the second year in a row, reaching almost 140,000 and exceeding the number of births by 28,100.