For the first time in history, more Americans are moving to EU than vice versa

BoumTAC

Americans enjoying their huge American salaries while working remotely from poor European countries

amarcheschi

The community note gives more information on the comparison

Isamu

Fairly steady trends since 2000 with a drop during covid, America becoming less popular for Europeans and Americans

garbawarb

Is a green card the equivalent to a first time residence permit in Europe? It's notoriously hard to get a green card: it'll take 3 years for a normal skilled worker who's already in the US and that's assuming nothing goes wrong in the process, and something always does. Plus many visa categories don't even have a path to a green card. "Long term stay visas issued" might be a better comparison.

comrade1234

Surprisingly, the vote on limiting Switzerland's population to 10 million may actually pass. Usually votes for things that will hurt the economy don't come close to passing but right now the limit is a few percent ahead.

tosti

I, for one, welcome our new American fellows.

idiotsecant

I suspect there are a lot of American hegemony trends that look like this. The US is burning good will and soft power that took centuries to accumulate in days or hours. This was a long term trend but the current American government is really stepping on the gas. The american century is over, but I'm not sure what comes next will be better, we will see.

sleepyguy

My kid moved from the US to Vienna for work. Loves it, says there is no reason to come back...I know a few more folks whose kids left after Uni to work in the EU and have no plans on returning. For a young person who values working to live more than living to work, the EU is very attractive.

irishcoffee

I had an issue at work, stuck all night on the phone trying to get a license activated. The first fellow I talked to was Australian, great guy. Really helpful, patient. He discovered the issue was indeed on their end. I took a nap at my desk for an hour (the license was needed on an airgapped system sneaker-netted over via an encrypted drive so I couldn't do this from home and the deadline had arrived). Woke up and called back, different fellow, European. Every answer, in perfect english, was about 3 words long on average in a very dismissive tone. I'd rather move to Australia.

pjdkoch

Notice that a lot of the graphs count people from the Americas. Not USA.

comrade1234

I'm American and moved to Europe (Switzerland) 17-years ago. Sometimes I laugh to myself when I think how whatmy long-dead immigrant grandfather (from Vilnius to Midwest USA) would think of my reverse move. Growing up we always thought my grandparents were the weirdest people. They roasted and ate whole chickens, not cut up chicken parts from the grocery store. They drank tea and ate weird Russian tea cake cookies. They made their own sausage. They hunted ducks and deer. They ate raw beef. Since moving to Europe I buy a lot of my food from neighborhood farms, roast whole chickens, make tartare, make cheese and sausage... hunting and fishing isn't so easy here though - I can do that when I visit relatives in the USA though.

josefritzishere

Aside from the authoritarian problems, the US is also clearly sliding into some kind of severe economic recession. I'm just envious of people who have that ability, really.

aqme28

I moved to Berlin a few years ago. Anecdotally, my friends and family back home are jealous.

geremiiah

Almost all of these are 1st or 2nd gen European diaspora, or the spouses of such people, who 1. still have financial ties to the European country from which they originate through inheritance of assets from their parents/grandparents 2. have citizenship through descent. The amount of "unaffiliated" Americans who move to Europe is probably negligible.

danayfm

I've been pulling it off, but I have dual citizenship with EU/USA but still get paid in the US because it saves me 2k a month in taxes. There are also workarounds in avoiding paying the higher EU taxes.

ineedaj0b

the inflow to the US is historically low, and this increase of US to EU immigrants is a very good thing imo - the US should be more US, the EU more EU, China more China etc etc.

sublimefire

IMO metrics are not well represented when looking into chart, eg european resident/student permits are not the same as green cards, they had to include students in us as well. another thing is the use of eu+uk+switzerland would it not be better to use eea instead (think about iceland and norway)? it is an interesting stat, but it might be good to understand the diff among US folks getting passports vs residence permits vs studying

lava_pidgeon

If you look up the graph this is a 20 years old trend . One thinks of course about Eastern Europe which had a decent economic growth. Compare to many American HN Readers thinking, "Europe" in General tried to make a place better for living. What it means is of course very dependent on person, but consider thinks like better health care, no war (that's the EU for), better indro, but also economics but to certain percentage it worked out! Though I can't say about American but health care and guns are still a problem. Compare to Europe which hadn't a start up 20 years ago and "Europe" tries to fix t.

hellcow

I'm moving from California to Portugal this week. I get to retire much earlier with low-cost healthcare and a cost of living lower relative to CA, and the Portuguese people I've met have all been wonderful. The food is great too! I'd rather be on the side that supports Ukraine, clean energy, and stable trade agreements. I don't feel safe in the US anymore.

keiferski

I think this is probably useless information considering that legal restrictions largely limit the ability of people to move from one to the other. Speaking as an American that “accidentally” moved to the EU a decade ago, my impression is still that ambitious EU citizens, particularly those in tech or finance, would move to the US in a second if it was possible to. That said, I don’t personally plan on moving back anytime soon, although I do miss certain aspects of the American identity and experience constantly.