More than 100,000 British expats are living in Germany, according to the latest official data.
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The number of Brits in Germany has risen by 10% since 2011 – from 97,000 to 107,000, says a report from the Office of National Statistics based on an analysis of the latest numbers available from the EU.
The figures do not include military personnel or their families – who boost the number by another 6,800.
The number of expats receiving the state pension totals 43,100.
This compares with 134,840 in Ireland, 108,135 in Spain, 66,864 in France and 36,763 in Italy.
Brits tend to marry locals
“Anyone with qualifying UK National Insurance contributions or credits can receive the state pension, so recipients are not necessarily British. Registering a European address is also not confirmation that the recipient is a long-term resident of another European country,” said an ONS spokesman.
The 2016 German Central Register for Foreigners (CRF) estimates that most British citizens (64%) have lived in the country for at least 10 years.
“There is other evidence to suggest that there is a proportion of the British population in Germany that is very settled. 52% of adult British citizens living in Germany are married, according to the latest figures provided by the German Microcensus for 2016. Of these, the majority are married to a German without a migrant background (30,000/61%) – that is, someone who was born in Germany or whose parents were born in Germany. This pattern has remained stable since 2011,” said the spokesman.
Where Brits live in Germany
“This contrasts with the pattern seen amongst British citizens living in France. Most married or cohabiting British citizens living in France (63%) are married to or cohabiting with other British citizens.”
Most expats live in Berlin (12%), Munich (11%) and Frankfurt (9%).
“There are differences in the age and sex of British citizens living in different regions of Germany which reflects the history between the two countries,” says the ONS.
“Hundreds of thousands of British Armed Forces personnel have completed a tour in Germany since World War 2 and this is shown in the demographic breakdown of British citizens in Germany. There are more British men living in Germany than British women, and this is particularly the case in the former British Army of the Rhine zone in the North-West of Germany, where a larger proportion of those aged 65 and over live.”
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