News

Foreign citizens 1 January 2012

Foreign citizens were 6.6% of the population 1 January 2012, the same as in the previous year. The number of foreign citizens was 20,957 or 186 fewer than in the previous year. The rate of foreign citizens has almost doubled in the past decade. On 1 January 2002 the share of foreign citizens in the population was 3.4%.

Polish citizens are the most numerous, constituting 43.2% of all foreign citizens in Iceland with 9,049 persons. Lithuanians are in the distant second place with 7.7% of all foreign citizens.

Males are in majority of persons with foreign citizenship. However, the sex ratio is  different depending on the origin. The sex ratio of Polish citizens is, e.g., 1,188 males per 1,000 females, while the sex ratio for Philippine citizens is 791 males per 1,000 females.

370 persons acquired Icelandic citizenship in 2011
In 2011, 370 persons were granted Icelandic citizenship, compared with 450 in 2010. This is the lowest number of persons being naturalised since 2002. As in every year since 1992 more females than males were granted Icelandic citizenship.

New Icelandic citizens in 2011 were mostly of European origin.

Postponement of statistics on foreign background
As data were not available in time for classification of the population by foreign background, these statistics are postponed until further notice.