Migration from Latin America to Europe
Latin American migration to Europe is the diaspora of Latin Americans to the continent of Europe, dating back to the first decades of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in the Americas. Latin Americans in Europe are now a rapidly growing group consisting of immigrants from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela. It may also include individuals from certain French-speaking territories depending on the definition of Latin America used.
A large majority of Latin Americans in Europe reside in Spain or have been naturalized as Spanish citizens. The main reasons of their migration to Spain are the common language, ethnic or family ties and cultural proximity to Spain. Portugal, Italy and France also have a sizable Latin American community; in the case of Italy, many of the immigrants are descendants of the Italian diaspora in Latin America.
Spain
Spain is the second destination of choice after the United States for Latin American migrants and the vast majority of Latin Americans in Europe are residents or nationals of this country.After several years of decline since a peak in 2010, the population of Spain born in Latin America has grown again since 2016. In 2019, 3,114,076 Spanish people born in South, Central America or the Caribbean had been legally residing in Spain for the last 12 months, compared to 2,340,247 in 2016 and 2,459,098 in 2010. A majority hold Spanish citizenship.
Following the "Law of historic memory" Latin Americans with a Spanish parent have automatic right to Spanish citizenship, even without residing in the country. This potentially applies to millions of Latin Americans. In addition, all Latin Americans from Spanish speaking countries qualify for Spanish citizens after two years' residence, regardless of recent ancestry. This compares very favorably to the requirement of ten years' residence for immigrants from other countries.
As a result, a significant and ever growing portion of Latin American immigrants have acquired Spanish citizenship due to naturalization laws and the falling number of Latin Americans residing in Spain is primarily due to them acquiring Spanish nationality and no longer being classed as immigrants. In the period between 2011 and 2013, over one million immigrants acquired Spanish citizenship and over 75% of these were Latin American. As an example, by 2014 the majority of Spain's 408,944 Ecuadorian-born residents had already acquired Spanish citizenship and were no longer included national statistics tracking immigration. As a result, Latin Americans with Spanish citizenship living in other European countries such as the UK, France or Germany benefiting from European freedom of movement and establishment for all EU citizens will be categorized as Spaniards when using nationality as a criterion to determine the country of origin of a particular EU country's immigrant population. Despite Spain's prolonged 2008-2015 economic crisis during which the country suffered years of massive unemployment and went from having the second highest immigration rate in the world to becoming a net-emigrant country, less than 30% of Spain's Latin American immigrants have left the country during this period. As a result of the combined effect of nationalization and net emigration during the economic crisis, the Latin American resident population yet to acquire Spanish nationality fell steadily to around 900,000 in 2015.
| Country of birth | Population | Corresponding article | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 EcuadorGermanyLatin American citizens registered in the German central register of foreigners.
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Chile
Argentina
Peru