More foreigners move to Switzerland

One quarter of the population does not hold a Swiss passport Keystone

The number of foreigners living in Switzerland has risen by 3.3% over the past year and about 24% of Switzerland’s eight million people do not hold a Swiss passport, according to the Federal Office for Migration.

Between May 2013 and April 2014, 151,852 foreigners came into Switzerland, and 68.950 left – 2.1% more than departed in the previous year.

While 33,000 people got a Swiss passport – about the same as the year before – some 2 million residents out of a population of eight million are not Swiss citizens. Of those, 1.3 million come from European Union-member countries and countries that are part of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

While the number of people from EU and EFTA countries entering Switzerland increased slightly less than last year – by 4.1% instead of 2013’s 4.2% – the number of immigrants from so-called “third countries” went up by 1.6% to 611,000.

Immigrants from Kosovo made up the largest group of foreigners entering Switzerland last year, followed by Portuguese, Germans, Italians and French.

The migration office’s annual population report reflects data between May 2013 and April 2014.