The new statistics on the Swiss Abroad 2021

The Federal Statistical Office published the statistics on the Swiss Abroad in 2021 at the beginning of April. The proportion of Swiss citizens living abroad has increased by 1.5% compared to 2020. More than one in ten people live abroad, three quarters have several citizenships.

The results of the 2021 statistics on the Swiss Abroad published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) show that 788,000 Swiss citizens were registered with a competent representation abroad at the end of the year. Compared to the previous year, this corresponds to an increase of 1.5%, a similar trend as in 2019. Significantly more Swiss Abroad are entered in a voting register in 2021: with 218,600 people, the number increases by more than 5% in comparison to the previous year. 

A large proportion of 64% of the Swiss Abroad can be found in Europe, preferably in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain. Their number increased in all of these countries. Outside Europe, the majority of Swiss people live in America (23%), mostly in the United States and Canada, both of which have seen an increase. Furthermore, 6.8% live in Asia, 4.2% in Oceania and 2.4% in Africa. The latter is the only continent to record a decrease of -0.6%. In contrast, an increase can be observed in Australia and Israel.

The age structure across all continents shows that 21.1% are under 18 years old, 22.5% are over 65 years old and the majority (56.4%) are between 18 and 64 years old. As in the previous year, the increase is highest in the oldest age group (+2.7%). 

In addition, three quarters of the Swiss Abroad have multiple citizenship. Since 2017, this proportion has increased by 5.3% worldwide. On the other hand, a comparison with immigration shows more Swiss emigrants since 1992, and this trend remains: in 2021, 28,700 Swiss people left Switzerland and 22,300 entered the country.