United States’ popularity as a destination for emigration has declined: less Germans moving to the USA (2024)

Press release No. N 068 of 26 October 2020

• For the first time since German reunification less than 10,000 Germans left their home in Germany and moved to the USA in 2019
• The United States continued to be among the three key destinations for German emigrants last year, although their popularity has declined since 2015
• More naturalisations of US Americans in 2019: +62% on the previous year
  

WIESBADEN - The result of the 59th US presidential election on 3 November is eagerly awaited. In the past few years, however, the United States have no longer been the most popular country of destination for German emigrants. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that 9,782 (3.6%) of the 270,294 Germans who left the country in 2019 moved to the United States. In 2016, the last year of Barack Obama’s US presidency, 12,781 (4.5%) of the 281,411 German emigrants chose the United States as their new home. Although there has been a downward trend, the United States were still one of the three key destinations for German emigrants last year. The only countries chosen by more Germans were Switzerland (16,340) and Austria (11,904).