Last updated: 2026-10-19

Somalis in Europe: Population, Employment, Crime Statistics, Asylum and Returns (2026)

Sweden had 65,960 residents born in Somalia and about 110,000 people with a Somalia-born parent at the end of 2025 (SCB); England and Wales counted 108,921 Somalia-born residents and 176,645 people identifying as Somali in the 2021 census (ONS). Employment among Somali-origin adults is about half in Denmark (51.1%) and Norway (48.8%), against roughly 80% for the majority population (Statistics Denmark, SSB). In Sweden, 14.24% of Somalia-born adults were registered as crime suspects over 2015 to 2018 against 3.18% of Swedish-born adults with Swedish-born parents, falling to 7.29% after adjusting for age, sex, income and education (Brå). In 2025, 62.7% of first-instance EU asylum decisions for Somali citizens were positive (Eurostat).

Last updated 19 October 2026. Statistics here describe people grouped by birth country, parental birth country, citizenship or self-declared ethnicity. Crime figures are registered suspects, charges or findings of guilt among individuals; they are not a measure of any community's character, and most people in every group are not registered for any offence.

Key figures

Measure	Figure	Date / basis	Source
Sweden: born in Somalia / Swedish-born with a Somalia-born parent	65,960 / 44,034	End 2025	SCB
England and Wales: born in Somalia / identify as Somali	108,921 / 176,645	Census, 21 March 2021	ONS
Norway: immigrants / Norwegian-born to immigrant parents	27,769 / 16,975	1 January 2026	SSB
Denmark: immigrants / descendants	10,974 / 10,749	1 January 2026	Statistics Denmark
Sweden: suspected at least once 2015-18, Somalia-born adults	14.24% unadjusted; 7.29% adjusted (age, sex, income, education)	Brå 2021	Brå
Norway: charged 2010-13 per 1,000 aged 15+, Somalia-born	123.8 unadjusted; 89.0 adjusted (age, sex, residence, employment) vs 44.9	SSB 2017	SSB
Denmark: Somali-origin residents found guilty, all offences	8.4% against 2.3% for Danish origin (site calculation)	2025	Statistics Denmark
Denmark: permits revoked in the Somali review	Nearly 1,000 (516 refugees, 412 family reunification)	By October 2018	DR
EU first-instance asylum decisions for Somalis, share positive	62.7% (12,395 of 19,755)	2025	Eurostat
Somali citizens ordered to leave the EU	7,480 (rounded)	2025	Eurostat

How many Somalis live in Europe, Canada and Australia?

No single Europe-wide total exists, because each country counts a different group; the tables below keep the definitions apart. "Born in Somalia" counts first-generation migrants only. "Origin" or "background" adds children born in the destination country. "Ethnic group" is self-declared. "Citizenship" misses those who have naturalised, so it undercounts the community where naturalisation is common.

Country	Born in Somalia	Wider group	Definition and date
Sweden	65,960	44,034 Swedish-born with at least one Somalia-born parent (30,849 with two); about 110,000 in total	Birth and parental birth country, end 2025
United Kingdom (England and Wales)	108,921	176,645 identify as Somali	Census 2021; Scotland and Northern Ireland excluded
Netherlands	30,647 born abroad	18,806 born in the Netherlands (49,453 in total)	Country of origin, 1 January 2026
Finland	16,663 born abroad with Somali background	11,336 born in Finland (27,999 in total)	Background country, 31 December 2025
Norway	27,769	16,975 (about 44,700 in total)	Immigrant category, 1 January 2026
Denmark	10,974	10,749 descendants (21,723 in total)	Ancestry and origin, 1 January 2026
Germany	Not found by birth country	57,934 Somali citizens	Citizenship, 1 January 2025
Italy	12,473	9,262 Somali citizens	Birth country and citizenship, 1 January 2025
Canada	34,120 (32,500 of them immigrants)	65,555 report Somali ethnic or cultural origin (38,055 first generation, 26,930 second)	Census 2021
Australia	7,668 (2016; no 2021 count retrieved)	18,401 with Somali ancestry (2021, quoted from the ABS via a secondary source)	Census

In England and Wales, 62.4% of people identifying as Somali lived in London, and 43.1% were born in Somalia and 43.5% in England (ONS). Ethnic-origin counts in Canada exceed birth-country counts partly because many Somali Canadians were born in Kenya, Ethiopia or other countries of first asylum.

How many Somalis live in Sweden?

Statistics Sweden counted 65,960 people born in Somalia at the end of 2025, plus 44,034 people born in Sweden with at least one Somalia-born parent, about 110,000 in all. Of the Swedish-born group, 30,849 have two Somalia-born parents, 7,457 one Somalia-born parent and one parent born in another foreign country, and 5,728 one Somalia-born and one Swedish-born parent.

A 2023 report by the Global Village Foundation, an NGO using Statistics Sweden data, gave a similar total, found that 62% of "Swedish Somalis" were under 25, and that 59.6% of Somalia-born residents held Swedish citizenship. Those are NGO figures, not official tables.

How do Somalis in Europe fare in jobs, income and education?

Employment rates for Somali-origin adults are about 38% to 53% in the countries with data, against 70% to 80% for the majority population, and have risen in Denmark and Sweden. Age structure matters: 48.2% of Somali-identifying people in England and Wales were under 21, against 24.2% overall (ONS).

Country	Somali-linked group	Reference group	Basis
Denmark	51.1% (men 52.0%, women 50.1%), up from 41.7% in 2019	79.7% Danish origin	Ages 16-64, 2024
Norway	48.8% (men 53.3%, women 43.9%)	79.5% non-immigrants; 67.5% all immigrants	Somalia-born, ages 20-66, Q4 2025
Netherlands	53% (first generation 50%, second 66%)	74% Dutch origin; 72% total	Net labour participation, 2024
Finland	About 38% (6,518 employed (table 115t) of 17,305 aged 15-64 (table 11rs))	About 72% Finnish background	Site calculation, 2024; indicative only
United Kingdom	42.6% in work (34.1% employed, 8.5% self-employed)	70.9% England and Wales	Ages 16-64, Census 2021
Sweden	48%	Almost 80% of all Swedes	Ages 20-64, 2018, NGO report on SCB data

The most detailed Swedish figures, from the same NGO report (2018 to 2019 data; no official table by Somalia birth country was found), are:

Average net income about SEK 235,000 against about SEK 303,000; entrepreneurs 2.6% of the employed against 7.7%.
67% living in low-economic-standard households against 15%; 20% in households with long-term social assistance against under 2%.
46% of adults aged 25 to 64 with only primary schooling against 11%; 51% of ninth-grade leavers qualifying for vocational upper-secondary programmes against 85%.

In the UK census, 72.0% of Somali-identifying people lived in social rented housing (16.6% nationally) and 58.8% in overcrowded homes (8.4%). Among 16 to 29 year olds, 27.6% held degree-level qualifications against 30.3% overall (ONS). Welfare and benefit tables by Somali origin were not retrieved for Denmark, Norway, Finland or the Netherlands.

Do Somalis in Sweden commit more crime?

Swedish data show a higher share of Somalia-born adults registered as crime suspects than of Swedish-born adults with Swedish-born parents, and the gap narrows substantially after adjustment (the ratio falls from 4.48 to 2.29); a suspect registration is not a conviction. Brå, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, counted persons aged 15 and over living in Sweden on 31 December 2014 who were registered as suspected of at least one offence during 2015 to 2018. Of 45,218 Somalia-born people, 6,440 were suspects, so about 86% were not registered (Brå report 2021:9; percentage is this site's calculation).

Measure	Somalia-born	Swedish-born, two Swedish-born parents
Share suspected, unadjusted	14.24%	3.18%
Standardised for age and sex	9.03%	3.18%
Plus disposable income	7.27%	3.18%
Plus education	7.29%	3.18%
Overrisk (ratio), unadjusted / age and sex / plus income / plus income and education	4.48 / 2.84 / 2.29 / 2.29	1.00

Source: Brå table annex. The measure is a four-year cumulative share, and the authors describe the study as mainly descriptive rather than causal. Compare figures only within one table. Brå's annex covers 2015 to 2018, and no later Somalia-specific official series was found.

What do crime statistics show for Norway, Denmark and Finland?

Each country publishes a different measure, so the rates cannot be compared across borders; in all three the unadjusted rate for Somali-linked groups is above the majority rate. Adjusted figures exist for Norway, and age-specific figures for Denmark and Finland.

Norway (persons charged, 2010 to 2013, per 1,000 residents aged 15 and over). From SSB report 2017/36:

Model	Somalia-born	Rest of population
Unadjusted (1,800 persons)	123.8	44.9
Age and sex	102.3	44.9
Plus place of residence	105.0	44.9
Plus employment	89.0	44.9

An earlier SSB analysis found 227 per 1,000 for Somalia-born residents, but the two studies are not strictly comparable. A newer SSB article reports charge rates in 2020 to 2023 close to 1,200 per 1,000 over four years for men aged 15 to 24 from Iraq and Somalia (a combined group), and close to 1,300 for Norwegian-born men with Moroccan or Somali parents, against just over 280 for the rest of the population. SSB cautions that these count charges rather than persons, that a few heavily charged individuals can move a group's rate, and that only the 15 to 24 male rates are comparable by age and sex.

Denmark (persons found guilty in 2025, all decisions including minor and traffic offences). Statistics Denmark counts from STRAFNA3 divided by the FOLK1C population (site calculations):

Group	Somali origin	Danish origin
All offences, all ages and sexes (1,808 of 21,569)	8.4%	2.3%
Criminal code offences only (549 of 21,569)	2.5%	0.33%
Men 15-29 / men 30-49	20.8% / 21.3%	5.7% / 5.5%
Women 15-29 / women 30-49	3.1% / 4.0%	1.4% / 2.1%

Of the 1,808 Somali-origin persons found guilty, 1,560 were men and 248 women. The age-specific rows are the nearest published substitute for age standardisation; they do not adjust for income, education or employment. For sexual offences the 2025 counts were 9 Somali-origin persons and 839 Danish-origin, too few for a rate.

Finland (suspects of solved Criminal Code offences, 2025, per 10,000). The series covers Somali citizens only, so naturalised Finns of Somali background are excluded: 2,471.9 per 10,000 (1,714 persons) against 602.8 for Finnish citizens; men 18 to 29: 4,683.7 against 2,358.4; men 30 to 49: 7,819.2 against 1,384.1; women 431.6 against 265.4. All foreign citizens combined had 812.2. The rate was 1,988.6 in 2023 and 2,357.7 in 2024; with a small base, yearly swings are large. Suspects are not convicted persons.

What crime data does not exist for Somalis in Europe?

For several countries no official series by Somali origin was found, so no statement about crime can be made for them.

Netherlands. CBS publishes suspect rates for only a few named origin groups, and none for Somalia (CBS 85658NED).
United Kingdom. No Home Office or Ministry of Justice publication by Somali origin was found.
Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia. Crime, employment and welfare series by Somali origin were not retrieved.
Sweden after 2018, and Denmark's age-standardised index. Brå's annex stops at 2018, and Statistics Denmark's standardised index was not retrieved.
Norway 2015 to 2018. The SSB tables have no Somalia row in the retrievable text.
Terrorism offenders. No European official statistic counts jihadist offenders by country of birth.

"Not found" means not located in this research, not that no data are held. The three stages differ: Brå and Statistics Finland count suspects, SSB counts charged persons, Statistics Denmark counts persons found guilty.

Why did Denmark revoke Somali residence permits?

Denmark reviewed about 1,200 Somali residence permits from autumn 2016 because they had been granted on the basis of general conditions in parts of Somalia, and nearly 1,000 were withdrawn by October 2018. After a 2015 amendment to the Aliens Act, the Danish Immigration Service announced the review. By October 2018, 516 refugees and 412 family-reunification cases had lost their permits. The Refugee Appeals Board upheld 42% of the decisions, sent 40% back and sided with the complainant in 18%. Only 42 people chose assisted repatriation in 2017 and 32 by December 2018 (DR, 16 December 2018).

The Danish Refugee Council opposed the review as premature. The same report cites Politiken for an unwritten agreement under which Somalia would accept a small number of returnees; no government source confirms it. No 2025 to 2026 revocation figures were found. Returns depend on Somali authorities accepting nationals, and parts of Somalia remain under al-Shabaab control; see why Somalis migrate.

What return and removal policies apply in Norway, Sweden and the EU?

EU states ordered 7,480 Somali citizens to leave in 2025, up from 4,645 in 2024, while about 595 returned in 2025. Orders were 3,990 in 2022 and 4,855 in 2023, all rounded (Eurostat migr_eiord). Returns following an order were about 550 in 2024 and about 595 in 2025, of which about 310 and 415 were forced (sums of rounded quarterly Eurostat data). Returns were about 8% of 2025 orders, though orders and returns in a year do not cover the same people.

Two national measures rest on secondary reporting only: Norwegian reporting cited by Wikipedia describes a programme from 2015 to return Somalis without a right to stay and 2016 citizenship withdrawals after false refugee claims; and Wikipedia reports a 2024 Swedish decision to raise the voluntary-return grant from about US$978 to over US$34,000 from 2026. Neither was checked against a government source.

How many Somali asylum seekers are recognised in Europe?

In 2025, 62.7% of first-instance EU decisions on Somali citizens were positive, while the EU asylum agency reported 48% for May 2026. Eurostat figures for the 27 EU states (migr_asydcfsta):

Year	Decisions	Positive	Refugee status	Subsidiary protection	Humanitarian	Share positive
2022	16,315	9,950	5,785	3,555	615	61.0%
2023	14,095	9,890	5,390	3,430	1,070	70.2%
2024	15,755	10,650	5,700	3,750	1,200	67.6%
2025	19,755	12,395	6,645	2,955	2,800	62.7%

Somali asylum applicants numbered 18,340 in 2025 (16,330 first-time), against 20,605 in 2015 and 17,920 in 2022 (Eurostat). The agency's 48% for May 2026 and "around 50%" generally is lower because it counts national forms of protection that are not harmonised EU statuses as negative, whereas Eurostat's positive total includes humanitarian status. Rates vary strongly between member states and say nothing about any individual claim.

Current UNHCR refugee counts in Europe are far smaller than the Somali-linked populations above, for example 41,383 in Germany, 5,771 in Sweden and 3,663 in the UK at end 2025 (UNHCR), because many arrived decades ago and have naturalised or had children.

Have Somali-born people been convicted of terrorism offences in Europe?

Yes, in a very small number of verified cases, involving individuals who were Muslims radicalised by extremist ideology; most Somali Muslims are not extremists, and al-Shabaab's victims are overwhelmingly Somali. Only cases with a court outcome are listed.

21 July 2005, London. Four men tried to detonate bombs on the transport network and were convicted of conspiracy to murder on 9 July 2007, each receiving life with a minimum of 40 years (Wikipedia). Yasin Hassan Omar was born in Somalia and arrived in 1992 as a child dependent of asylum seekers (Wikipedia). Ramzi Mohammed is listed as Somalia-born without a citation (Wikipedia). The other two men were not Somali-born.
1 January 2010, Aarhus. A 28-year-old Somali man who had lived in Denmark about 15 years attacked cartoonist Kurt Westergaard at home; a jury convicted him on 22 June 2011 of attempted terrorism and attempted murder, with 10 years followed by deportation (Wikipedia).
9 November 2018, Melbourne (outside Europe). Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, who came from Somalia in the 1990s, stabbed three people, one fatally, in an attack police called Islamic State-inspired; police shot him dead (Wikipedia).

Cases involving US residents are on the security cases page. Court cases are described from encyclopaedia summaries of news reports.

How are Somalis integrating in Europe, and who holds elected office?

Indicators have improved in several countries, though gaps with the majority remain large.

Denmark: employment up from 41.7% in 2019 to 51.1% in 2024 (Statistics Denmark).
Sweden: Somali-Swedes in work rose from about 10,000 to almost 24,000 in five years, and 2018 election turnout among eligible Somali-Swedes was 79% against 87% nationally (NGO report).
Netherlands: second-generation labour participation 66% against 50% for the first generation (CBS).
Norway: charge rates for Somalia-born residents fell from 227 to 123.8 per 1,000 between two SSB studies, which are not strictly comparable (SSB).
UK: 13.3% of employed Somali-identifying people work in professional occupations (ONS).

Elected officials (from encyclopaedia pages; check against parliamentary records): Ahmed Hussen, born in Mogadishu, Canadian MP since 2015 and immigration minister from 2017 to 2019 (Wikipedia); Suldaan Said Ahmed, Finland's first Somali-born MP, 2021 to 2023 (Wikipedia); Magid Magid, Lord Mayor of Sheffield 2018 to 2019 and MEP 2019 to 2020 (Wikipedia); Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dutch lower-house member 2003 to 2006 (Wikipedia). No official business-ownership series was found outside Sweden's NGO figure above.