Foreigners driven to Prague by work, study, and urban environment

The number of foreigners living in Prague has surged from around 61,000 in 2001 to 345,000 as of end-2022, according to the Institute of Planning and Development (IPR). Foreigners’ main motivation for moving to Prague is mainly due to economic reasons, but also for university and due to the quality of the urban environment.

IPR says that Ukrainians make up the largest share of foreigners in Prague, at 170,000. However, as this data is from the end of 2022, the de facto number is likely to be substantially higher – over 350,000 Ukrainian refugees relocated to Prague on a long-term basis following Russia’s widescale 2022 invasion, the majority of whom live in Prague. 

Foreigners’ migration into Czechia ensures that the total population of Prague is not decreasing. According to the latest available data, Prague has 1.38 million residents, although in 2022 the number of births in Prague was the lowest since 2007. Without foreigners, Prague’s population would have dropped by about 5,000 between 2016 and 2021. Around 159,000 foreigners live in Central Bohemia.

The analysis also reveals that the population of foreigners in Prague is comparatively younger than the Czech population, with an average age of 35.5 years. In contrast, the average age of people with Czech citizenship in 2021 was around 43.

Interestingly, according to data from mobile phone operators, there are up to 300,000 more people living in the capital than official data indicates. This is due to commuting trends and failures to report changes of residence to the population register. 

Educationally, a report from Czechia media outlet Seznam Zprávy from last year found that one in five university students were foreign, and that the number of foreign-born students increased around fivefold in the last 20 years. 

“Forty-five percent of foreign graduates choose to stay in Czechia after their studies to work," Czech National Agency for International Education and Research Michal Uhl said earlier this year. "And almost half of the students in the survey expressed a desire to remain in the Czech Republic and enter the labor market or continue their studies," he added.

Prague’s foreign population increase is a microcosm of a national trend. Last year, the Czech Statistical Office reported that the number of legally residing foreigners in the Czech Republic surged by 455,305 to reach 1.12 million people. Almost 1 million foreigners work in Czechia overall.