Romania Emigration and Immigration

Online Resources

 * 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Romania
 * 1904-1914 Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Romania
 * 1942 Romania, Passengers on the Struma, 1942 at Ancestry; index only ($)
 * 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
 * Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild Choose a volume and then choose your country under "Listed by Port of Departure" or "Listed by Port of Arrival".
 * Immigrant Ancestors Project

Finding the Town of Origin in Romania
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Romania, see Romania Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Romania Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration to Romania

 * Over half of the country's foreign-born residents originate from Republic of Moldova. Owing to the former period of union between most of Moldova and Romania, many Moldovans are eligible for Romanian citizenship on the basis of descent. Many immigrants from the Republic of Moldova prefer to settle in the Romanian counties from the region of Moldavia, because there the culture is more similar to their home country.
 * In recent years, considerable numbers of Chinese and Vietnamese citizens work in Romania, due to the emigration of a large part of the Romanian workforce. There are also workers from Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Serbia, Lebanon, Turkey. Many Chinese live in the Ilfov County (the county surrounding Bucharest).
 * Arabs in Romania come primarily from Syria (including refugees of the Syrian Civil War), Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia. In 2018, most asylum applicants were from Iraq, Syria and Iran.
 * Africans come primarily to study in Romania, most of them from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo.
 * Top fifteen immigrant populations by 2017: (For populations in additional countries, see Immigration to Romania: Statistics
 * Estimate immigrants to Romania (as of mid-2017, including refugees):


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 * Moldova - 151,000
 * Italy - 51,000
 * Spain - 39,000
 * Ukraine - 16,000
 * Bulgaria - 14,000
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 * France - 9,000
 * Germany - 9,000
 * Hungary - 8,000
 * Serbia (with Kosovo) - 8,000
 * Turkey - 8,000
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 * Russia - 7,000
 * United Kingdom - 7,000
 * Greece - 6,000
 * China - 5,000
 * United States - 4,000
 * }
 * }

Emigration from Romania
Romanians, who emigrated for the first time in larger figures between 1910 and 1925, and left in mass after the fall of communist regime in Romania in 1989, are found today in large numbers in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Russia, Turkey, Belgium, the U.K., Ireland, China, Japan, Australia, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina'. Today there are over 10 million people of Romanian descent outside the country.
 * Romanians in Italy became a significant population after 1999, due to a large wave of emigration. A large part of Romanian emigrants went to Spain or Italy, whose national languages are Romance languages like Romanian. They were followed by another wave beginning in 2002, when Romanian citizens obtained the right to move to any Schengen Zone country without a visa. As of 2019, there were 1,145,718 Romanian citizens living in Italy.
 * Emigration to Spain started to increase slowly during the late 1990s, and exploded after 2002. By 2011, it reached a peak of nearly 900,000 people, after which the Romanian population has been steadily decreasing, falling to 669,434 by 2019.

For Further Reading
There are additional sources listed in the FamilySearch Catalog: