Expatriate Swiss community grows and ages
The Swiss Abroad community continued to grow in numbers, notably in Europe and Asia last year, according to official statistics.
In total, there were 770,900 registered expatriate Swiss – up 1.4% on 2018.
Most Swiss Abroad citizens lived in Europe, notably in neighbouring France, Germany and Italy, but expats in Britain saw the biggest increase (+3.4%) in 2019.
The largest Swiss AbroadExternal link community outside Europe is in the United States (about 81,100), Canada (40,300), Australia (25,500) and in Israel (20,900).
However, the number of expatriates living in an African country dropped slightly (-0.5%) in 2019 compared with the previous year, the Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday.
Just over 21% of the expatriate Swiss living around the globe were under 18 years old, and nearly 22% were above 65.
A noticeable increase among the older age group (+3.3%) is due to a higher rate of emigrants and the general ageing process of the population.
The latest data shows that the Swiss Abroad community accounts for more than 10% of Swiss passport holders, the statistics office said.
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