Portugal last year granted 26,593 first-time residence permits to individuals who originated from countries outside the EU.
This was part of the 2.3 million such permits granted in all of the EU’s 28 countries to people from non-EU nations.
Those issued by Portugal were equivalent to 2.5% per thousand inhabitants.
Family reasons were behind 12,224 cases (46%), followed by 6,394 for employment (24%) and 4,734 for reasons of education (18%).
The remaining 3,241 were for “other reasons”, according to Eurostat.
The largest number of recipients came from Brazil (30%), Cape Verde (12%) and China (8%).
For the EU28, the number of permits authorised for the first time was 12% higher than the previous year of 2012. But it is still lower than the number issued in 2008 when lots of employment opportunities came to a sudden halt with the financial crisis.
Last year, the highest number of first-time residence permits was recorded by the UK (724,200 which represents 30% of all those issued throughout the EU).
The number which the UK granted was the equivalent of 1.1% of its total population. Most recipients were from India (19%), the US (15%), and the Philippines (12%)
After the UK were Poland, Italy, France, Germany and Spain. These six countries issued nearly 80% of all the residence permits.
Ten percent of all the permits were issued to Ukrainians which was the highest number of permits. This was followed by India, the US and China. These four groups accounted for 30% of all permits.
