Italy issued 426,956 new residence permits to citizens of non-EU countries during 2025, a 47.2% increase from the previous year, according to a report released by the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) on 22 October 2026. The total was the highest in 15 years apart from the 2022 peak, which was largely driven by arrivals from Ukraine. The report distinguishes new permits from the resident population already holding valid documents: more than four million non-EU citizens had regular residence permits in Italy at 31 December 2025. Those figures describe different measures and should not be treated as the same flow.

Family and study permits recorded the largest increases. Permits for family reasons rose 61.2% to 168,733, representing 39.5% of all new permits. Study permits increased 76% to more than 35,000, the highest absolute total since 2010. Istat points to university efforts to attract international students, including scholarships, tuition exemptions and wider English-language course offerings, as possible contributors. The institute says the rise in family-reunification permits is harder to interpret because eligibility rules tightened; it suggests some applications may have been filed before the new requirements took effect. That is a possible explanation cited by Istat, not proof of a single cause.

Permits for work rose 45.9% and approached 59,000, still well below the quota of 165,000 entries planned for 2025. Work permits accounted for 13.8% of all new permits. Men received 83.2% of work permits: 49,114 went to men and 9,884 to women. India, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Bangladesh were the main countries of origin for work permits. Lombardy issued 23% of all new permits, with Veneto, Campania and Emilia-Romagna also accounting for notable shares. These are permit counts and geographic distributions; they do not measure hours worked, job quality or whether employment actually began.

Asylum applications fell 15.1% to 128,665 in 2025 from 151,120 in 2024. Territorial commissions examined 104,560 first-instance applications and rejected 70%. Istat also reports that more than 178,000 people acquired Italian citizenship in 2025. These indicators refer to separate administrative processes: new residence permits, asylum applications and citizenship acquisitions are not interchangeable or additive flows. Rather than attribute the overall increase to one factor, the report separates movements across family, study, work and protection categories.