Around 7% of Bucharest residents are foreigners, official report says

Almost 7% of Bucharest’s population is represented by foreigners, according to data from the General Inspectorate for Immigration cited by Radio Romania Actualitati.

Bucharest immigration officials registered over 144,000 people in the city in 2025. Approximately 100,000 of them were from countries such as Nepal, Turkey, or Sri Lanka, while over 40,000 were primarily from Italy, Sweden, and France.

Out of those registered in Bucharest, over 60,000 came to work. Migrant workers, especially those from Southeast Asia, have been filling essential gaps in the Romanian workforce, working especially in construction, delivery, or the service industry.

“Starting with the year 2016 and up to the present, the increase has been substantial, so that, only within the area of the municipality of Bucharest, the increase is fivefold, and if we relate to the last five years, the increase is almost threefold,” said Ionuţ Cârdei, head of the Immigration Directorate of the Municipality of Bucharest.

“Last year, the increase was almost 30%. If this trend continues and their number grows at the same pace, in the next five years around a quarter of the people who live in Bucharest will be foreigners," the official added.

Between 2022 and 2024, Romania registered almost 200,000 more inhabitants due to immigration, according to Social Monitor, a project of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, based on official data. Important contingents of emigrants from Romania had Nepalese (11,417), Turkish (10,698), Sri Lankan (8,123), Moldovan (7,738), or Indian (5,474) citizenship.

(Photo source: LCVA | Dreamstime.com)