This chapter compares immigration flows of people from outside of the EEA and UK with the number of residence permits issued to this group between 2017 and 2019, which record periods of economic inactivity and activity and private education.
A residence permit is required for any non-EEA and non-UK national aged 16 and over intending to stay longer than 90 days in the State. This includes students, people travelling for family reasons and for work. Permit length varies from three to 12 months or more. A PPSN is only allocated if it is necessary for an interaction with a public body, for example to pay tax on PAYE income. Therefore, some people on residence permits will not appear in other administrative data and will not be counted in the experimental methodology on immigration counts in this report.
Residence permits and estimated immigration of people aged 16 and over from outside the EEA and UK all show a steady increase between 2017 and 2019. As expected, the immigration numbers are lower than the number of residence permits, for both the ‘annual’ and ‘monthly’ methodologies. For example, in 2019 there were 59,300 residence permits (including some of which that may be extended), compared with 47,900 immigrants using the ‘One dataset rule’ and 41,000 from the ‘Two dataset rule’. See Figure 4.1 and Table 4.1.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
| Total number of permits | 47.901 | 49.939 | 59.278 |
| One dataset rule | 33.5 | 40.6 | 47.9 |
| Two dataset rule | 28.2 | 35.8 | 41 |
| Monthly methodology | 0 | 0 | 35.9 |
| Table 4.1: Immigration of non-EEA, non-UK nationals aged 16 or over from the administrative data1 estimates compared with first residence permit numbers | ||||||
| '000s | ||||||
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
| Monthly methodology | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 35.9 |
| One dataset rule | 21.4 | 24.3 | 27.7 | 33.5 | 40.6 | 47.9 |
| Two dataset rule | 17.6 | 20.4 | 23.5 | 28.2 | 35.8 | 41.0 |
| Total number of permits | 36.7 | 38.4 | 47.9 | 47.9 | 49.9 | 59.3 |
| Permits 3-5 months | 4.5 | 2.1 | 7.0 | 6.5 | 6.0 | 6.1 |
| Permits 6-11 months | 21.2 | 21.7 | 20.1 | 24.2 | 25.5 | 29.3 |
| Permits 12 months + | 11.0 | 14.6 | 14.2 | 17.2 | 18.4 | 23.8 |
| Source: Eurostat | ||||||
| 1 Also excluding Switzerland. Figures for 2018 and 2019 are preliminary and subject to revision once additional data becomes available. Not all data sources were available for all years, in particular the most recent years, and this should be taken into account when interpreting the results. Monthly methodology 2019 only. | ||||||
About six in ten residence permits were for education and about two in ten were for work between 2017 to 2019. A person arriving to study in Ireland does not usually need a PPSN, (see explanation in Methodology). See Figure 4.2 and Table 4.2.
Some of these students may subsequently start work, for which they need a PPSN, and will then appear in the administrative estimates, although not necessarily as substantially employed.
| Family | Education | Work | Other | |
| 2017 - from 3 to 5 months | 0.827205882352941 | 78.2322303921569 | 13.1893382352941 | 7.75122549019608 |
| 2017 - 6 months or over | 7.26077393469171 | 54.3373697822251 | 20.6342300534165 | 17.7676262296667 |
| 2018 - from 3 to 5 months | 1.71723907969323 | 77.2257419139713 | 10.4201400466822 | 10.6368789596532 |
| 2018 - 6 months or over | 6.09453585489634 | 58.171184087754 | 20.1520220295396 | 15.58225802781 |
| 2019 - from 3 to 5 months | 1.75953079178886 | 73.5092864125122 | 15.167807103291 | 9.56337569240795 |
| 2019 - 6 months or over | 6.70493037260068 | 56.8742943168988 | 20.9220925856229 | 15.4986827248777 |
Only activity in administrative sources that are available to the CSO can be measured in this analysis. Many new immigrants may be economically inactive when searching for a job or home in Ireland and will therefore not appear in the data sources used in this report during periods of inactivity.
Residence permits data would greatly improve the accuracy of this analysis if it can be integrated with other data sources. There would still be inherent bias towards lower migration numbers for Irish and EEA/UK migrants as there is no equivalent administrative data where inactive periods are recorded for these cohorts.
All administrative data currently available to the CSO and relevant to migration was used for this analysis. However, this methodology could be improved in the future as further administrative data becomes available from new sources.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.