The Other Half

Luxembourg has 52% citizens and 48% everyone else. Nearly one in two people living in this country does not hold a Luxembourgish passport. That number has been climbing for years, but the composition of that 48% is changing in ways that get less attention than the headline[1].

For decades, the foreign population was mostly European. Portuguese, French, Italian, Belgian. These communities have been here for generations. They are the backbone of the cross-border economy. Their children go to Luxembourgish schools, sometimes speak Letzebuergesch better than their parents' mother tongue, and in many cases have naturalised. They are, in every functional sense, Luxembourgish, even if a passport says otherwise[2].

What is new is the diversification beyond Europe. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the top three nationalities receiving residence permits as third-country nationals in 2025 were Indian, Syrian, and Chinese. Ukrainians are now the largest third-country community, having grown dramatically since 2022. The profile of the foreign resident is no longer just a European commuter or a Portuguese construction worker[3].

Some of this is driven by labour shortages. Luxembourg publishes an annual list of professions it needs, and the list keeps getting longer. IT professionals, engineers, healthcare workers, finance specialists. The migration law has been adjusted to make it easier for people in these fields to move here. The Indian community, in particular, has grown fast, tied to the changing work environment and the demand for skills that the local education system cannot supply quickly enough[4].

Some of it is driven by geopolitics. War and instability produce asylum seekers, and Luxembourg, small as it is, takes its share. The Syrians and Ukrainians did not come for jobs. They came because home was not survivable[5].

The interesting question is what this does to Luxembourgish identity. Luxembourg is not a melting pot. It is a small country with a language spoken by fewer than 400'000 people, a language that is the primary marker of belonging. The Sproochentest, the Luxembourgish language exam, is the gate to naturalisation. Pass it and you can become a citizen. Fail it and you remain, statistically, foreign[6].

But identity is not a passport. A resident who has been here for fifty years, raised children here, voted in municipal elections, and speaks Letzebuergesch at the grocery store is Luxembourgish in every way that matters except the one the state counts. The binary of 52/48 hides this complexity. It puts a naturalised citizen who arrived five years ago on one side, and a lifelong resident without a passport on the other[7].

The researchers at CEFIS, the intercultural studies centre, point out that the foreign community is diversifying rapidly. The old model of European migration is giving way to something broader and more global. That brings opportunities, new cuisines, new businesses, new perspectives, and also challenges. Integration is not automatic. Language classes fill up. Schools stretch to accommodate dozens of mother tongues. Housing, already scarce, gets scarcer[8].

Luxembourg has always been a country of newcomers. The difference now is scale and speed. The 48% is not a static number. It is a moving target, and it is moving in one direction.