The number of residence permits granted to non-EU citizens in Hungary increased by 113 per cent in 2017 to 117,026.
According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, Hungary recorded the highest rate of non-EU residence permits in 2017 among all EU member states.
The highest number of valid permits were registered by Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese nationals, with the number of Chinese permits growing by 148 per cent. Hungary registered 6,978 Russian permits in 2017 compared to only 113 in 2016, while Ukrainian permits more than quadrupled and stood at 13,196 in 2017.
Eurostat data shows that the number of permits issued also doubled in Bulgaria and Slovakia. While the majority of EU countries registered an increase, there was a decline in the number of permits issued in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Romania.