Ukrainians and Slovaks form the largest groups of foreigners in the Czech Republic, but numerous Vietnamese, Russians, Turks, and Britons have also settled in the country. The number of foreigners with a residence permit has risen by more than 142% over the past decade. At the end of last year, the Ministry of the Interior registered nearly 1.1 million foreigners, compared to 452,000 in 2014.
Last year, the number of foreigners in the Czech Republic increased by approximately 28,000, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior’s website. Foreigners now make up 10% of the Czech population, up from just over 4% a decade ago.
“The significant increase is due to the refugees from Ukraine,” said Tomáš Fiala, a demographer at the University of Economics in Prague, speaking to the news portal Novinky.cz. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian war refugees arrived in the Czech Republic following the outbreak of the war in 2022, in addition to the many Ukrainians who had already come to the country for work.
At the end of last year, Czech authorities registered nearly 389,000 refugees with temporary protection, not all of whom were Ukrainian citizens. According to the ministry, people from Turkey, Russia, Belarus, Thailand, Vietnam, and – somewhat surprisingly – the United Kingdom and the United States also received temporary protection.
Ukrainians make up the largest group of foreigners living in the Czech Republic, followed by Slovaks, with more than 120,000 holding temporary or permanent residence in the country. However, the figures are not entirely accurate, as EU citizens do not have to register, unlike citizens from third countries.
There are also many other foreign nationals living in the Czech Republic, including 69,000 Vietnamese, 39,000 Russians, over 21,000 Romanians, and almost 18,000 Poles.
The largest number of foreigners was registered in Prague at the end of last year—more than 354,000, meaning that foreigners make up around a quarter of the city’s population. The Brno-City district registered nearly 67,000, the Pilsen-City district almost 45,000, and over 20,000 in Liberec. Mladá Boleslav had 23,000, mainly due to the Škoda car plant—about the same number as in Ostrava.
