Immigrants in Iceland were 31,812 1 January 2016, 9.6% of the population. The proportion of immigrants is larger than last year, when it was 8.9% of the population. The number of second generation immigrants rose from 3,846 in 2015 to 4,158 in 2016. An immigrant is a person born abroad with two foreign born parents and four foreign born grandparents, whereas a second generation immigrant is born in Iceland having two immigrant parents. A person with foreign background has one parent of foreign origin.
Immigrants by country of birth
People born in Poland were by far the most numerous group of immigrants. In 2016, 11,988 immigrants or 37.7% of the total immigrant population were born in Poland. Other large immigrant groups were born in Lithuania (1,612) and in the Philippines (1,526).
Immigrants by region
On 1 January 2016, 65.9% of first and second generation immigrants were living in the capital region. The highest proportion of immigrants is in the Southwest where 16.0% of the population are first and second generation immigrants, while the lowest proportion is in the Northwest where only 5.1% of the population are immigrants or second generation immigrants.
801 persons acquired Icelandic citizenship in 2015
In 2015, 801 persons were granted Icelandic citizenship, compared with 595 in 2014. As in every year since 1992 more females than males were granted Icelandic citizenship in 2015. New Icelandic citizens were mostly of Polish origin (256).
