Updated April 2025
The German Statistics Authority or Statistisches Bundesamt (website in German and English) and statista.com have released their latest 2023 population figures:
There are around 1.2 million British citizens living in the European Union.
As far as UK citizen numbers in Germany are concerned, there is often confusion and misquoting because it depends if dual German/British citizens are included, or not. In fact, there is no reason not to include them as they hold British citizenship like all other British citizens.
So, if you google the number of British citizens living in Germany or look it up on the German Statistical website, you see that as of end of December 2023 there are 66,101 UK citizens registered in Germany.
But this figure is misleading, as it only refers to UK citizens that don’t hold dual German citizenship, as the German statistics agency, destatis, counts dual British/German nationals in Germany as German, which they are, but also equally British.
Therefore British in Germany estimate there are over 180,000 British citizens registered as living in Germany as of 2023, including the children of British nationals and the 80,000 + British/German dual nationals.
Since the Brexit referendum in June 2016, over 60,000 British nationals have been granted German citizenship and over 80,000 British citizens in Germany are now dual German/British citizens according to the latest published German statistics. (available also in English)
*Note, prior to 2014 around 25,000 British citizens already had dual nationality.
In 2019, 14,600 Brits were granted German citizenship compared to only 622 naturalisations in 2015, illustrating the huge spike in applications as a direct result of the Brexit referendum. The annual numbers for British citizens receiving German citizenship from 2013 – 2023 make that spike very clear. Since the new German citizenship law was passed in June 2024, an increase in British citizens receiving dual German/British nationality in 2024 & 2025 will again be evident.
Numbers for British citizens receiving German citizenhip 2013 – 2023: 2013 – 459 / 2014 – 459 / 2015 – 622 / 2016 – 2,865 / 2017 – 7,493 / 2018 – 6,640 / 2019 – 14,600 / 2020 – 4,930 / 2021 – 4,570 / 2022 – 2,315 / 2023 – 1,310 / 2024/5 – will show a spike upwards again due to the 2024 German Citizenship Law.
As the Brexit Migration Study by Auer/Tetlow says, these numbers represent an “unprecedented migration phenomenon in British German history” as well as a significant shift in social and citizen identity for around half of all British citizens living in Germany; “the implications of which are still being lived out and determined today”.
Application for dual citizenship for Brits was only possible until the end of the Withdrawal Agreement period, being December 31, 2020 after which British citizens, as non-EU citizens, had to give up their British citizenship to be granted German citizenship. Since then the German Government have changed the law in June 2024 making dual citizenship much easier to attain. Read more about the new law here.
Fuurther reading on the impact of Brexit on UK to EU migration and on British lives in Germany: ‘Brexit, Uncertainty and Migration Decisions’. Co-Authored by Dr Daniel Auer & Daniel Tetlow
British and International media reports:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/hot-topics/brexit/migration-out-of-uk-to-eu-increased-30-since-brexit/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/26/number-britons-going-to-europe-at-10-year-high
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thousands-settle-brexit-doubts-by-becoming-german-swkxlb5f7