Bank of Italy

The data on foreign workers' remittances report the transfers of money sent abroad by foreign workers by means of payment institutions or other authorized intermediaries without using bank accounts (settlement in cash).

Published data are updated quarterly; since 2016 data are available on a quarterly basis with the breakdown by receiving foreign country; on an annual basis they are available with the additional detail of the Italian province where the sender is located.

Data

Foreign workers' remittances in 2022

In the fourth quarter of 2022, remittances sent abroad by foreign workers in Italy increased by 6.6 per cent compared with the same period of the previous year (Table 1).

Annual growth was equal to 6.1 per cent; the increase was larger for flows towards Asia (+13.6 percent), Northern Africa and the Near East (+8.3 percent), and Sub-Saharan Africa (+4.1 percent). Conversely, flows towards European countries diminished (-6.1 and -1.7 percent for EU and non-EU members, respectively).

The three main recipient countries of remittances from Italy in 2022 were Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Philippines, which absorbed respectively 14.6, 8.5, and 7.6 percent of total flows (Table 2).

With respect to 2021, outgoing flows of remittances increased in all regions of Northern and Central Italy. Almost a half of the remittances sent abroad originated from the three most important regions in terms of flows: Lombardy (22.6 percent; Table 3), Lazio (14.9 percent) and Emilia-Romagna (10.4 percent); flows from the provinces of Rome, Milan, and Venice directed towards Bangladesh and Philippines contributed the most to the increase (Figure 1).

Table 1: Foreign workers' remittances

(millions of euros, percentage changes, percentage points)

Table 1