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Residence permit for foreigners, for January-June over 18 thousand applications, 61% of them for work

2026-07-22 14:47:00, Sociale CNA

Residence permit for foreigners, for January-June over 18 thousand applications,

Over 18,000 foreign citizens from 140 countries have applied for residence permits in Albania for the first 6 months of 2026.

According to State Police data for Monitor, during the period January-June 2026, a total of 18,552 applications for residence permits for foreign citizens were registered.

The data shows that the request for a residence permit in Albania continues to be dominated by employment motives, while the flow of applications remains concentrated mainly in the cities of Durrës, Tirana and Vlora.

Specifically, the majority of applications, 11,246 or 61%, belong to the category of unique permits for employees, confirming that employment remains the main reason for foreign citizens to stay in the country.

Next in line are applications for humanitarian reasons with 2,564 applications or 14% of the total. 1,746 citizens or 9% of the total were granted residence permits for family reunification.

Other categories include the granting of 805 residence permits for studies, which constitutes 4% of the total new permits. Also, there were 737 unique permits for self-employed/investors for January-June, or 4% of them, while 20 applications were registered for permanent permits.

By gender, 11,851 applicants or 64% of them are male, while 6,701 or 36% of them are female.

In terms of territorial distribution, the largest number of applications was registered at the Local Directorate for Border and Migration (DVKM) in Durrës with 6,241 applications, constituting 34% of the total, followed by Tirana with 5,932 or 32% of them and Vlora with 4,356 or 23% of them.

Meanwhile, DVKM Shkodër has registered 1,301 applications, in Kukës 328, in Gjirokastër 273 and in Korça 121 applications.

The data shows that the highest number of applications were submitted by citizens from the Philippines, with 2,841 applications, followed by citizens of Switzerland with 2,511, India with 2,323, and Egypt with 2,270 applications.

Next in line are citizens of Italy with 1,478 applications, Kosovo with 1,266, Turkey with 985, the USA with 504, Myanmar with 494 and Tunisia with 296 applications.

Also, a significant number of applications were registered by citizens of Ukraine (237), Russia (222), Indonesia (215), North Macedonia (210) and Nigeria (173). The rest of the applications were distributed among citizens from over 100 different countries./ Monitor