FLASH NEWS
The wave of immigration brings more money to Albania: 274 million euros in the first quarter
2026-06-11 09:14:10 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE
The money that emigrants bring to their families in Albania continues to have an increasing trend, as the number of Albanians living abroad is increasing due to the new wave of emigration.
Bank of Albania data on the balance of payments revealed that income from emigrants reached 274 million euros in the first quarter of the year, with an increase of 9.1% compared to the same period a year earlier.
Since 2013, the money that emigrants bring to Albania has increased continuously (see chart), reflecting a new cycle of emigration, which began mainly after 2015.
After a decline in 2020, as a result of the pandemic, the upward trend accelerated significantly.
Other INSTAT data show that net migration, the difference between the number of people entering to live and those leaving our country, continues to be negative in Albania throughout the period 2011-2025, showing an upward trend after the pandemic.
An alarming figure of more than 166.4 thousand Albanians appear to have left the country during the post-pandemic years from January 1, 2021 to 2026. The latest official data from INSTAT on net migration for the period 2011–2026 show that, when global movement restrictions were eased in 2021, there was a strong increase in net migration to minus 32,853 people, a trend that remained almost unchanged during 2022 with minus 32,497 people leaving. This unstoppable flow culminated in 2024, a period in which the largest historical loss of this decade was also recorded with a negative balance of minus 43,761 people, also due to revisions from the Population Census where the indicator of two years was summed up in the year. In the following two years, 2025-2026, over 57.3 thousand people left, or over 28 thousand people per year. Compared to the resident population, the figures remain extremely high and prove that the demographic hemorrhage is not stopping.
This trend was also confirmed by Eurostat, where for the period 2021-2024, EU member states issued 284,585 residence permits for the first time to Albanian citizens. There is an increasing trend for work permits, which account for almost 1/3 of total residence permits and have doubled compared to before the pandemic.
Market players claim that the main channels continue to remain traditional countries of immigration, such as Greece and Italy, but in recent years there has been growth from new destinations such as England and Germany.
Remittances are counted by the Bank of Albania as part of the current account in the balance of payments, according to IMF standards (BPM6).
They include all monetary flows that emigrants send to families and individuals resident in Albania, both through formal channels (banks, financial institutions and transfer operators), as well as through estimates of informal flows.
For this purpose, the Bank uses banking system data, periodic reports from licensed entities and specific surveys of beneficiary families, aiming to capture the entirety of real remittance flows in the economy./monitor.al
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