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Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Italy

People registered with Italy nationality number 1,483, which is 0.1% of all registered foreigners and ranks 42 in size. Compared with 621 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 138.8%. They live in 135 districts, and the largest counts are Seoul Yongsan-gu with 127, Seoul Mapo-gu with 101, and Seoul Seodaemun-gu with 82. The index of dissimilarity (D) from Koreans is 0.552, the isolation index is 0, and interaction with Koreans is 0.963. The highest location quotient (LQ) is in Seoul Yongsan-gu at 21.8, where this nationality is 0.1% of the foreigners in that district. The continent of origin is Europe. The largest age group is 25-29 at 20.8%, and men are 44.9%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Italian at 94.8% and Romanian at 1%.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by nationality, registered foreigners by nationality and district, registered foreigners by status of stay), staying foreigners by nationality and age

The index of dissimilarity, the isolation index, and the location quotient are calculated from the open dataset.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: people, organizations, index

Year 2025

Indicators	Italy	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
Registered foreigners	1,483	1,604,920	0.1% of the total
Districts of residence	135	250	54.0% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)	0.552	0.280	rank 60 of 107
Isolation index	0.0002	0.045	rank 37 of 107
Interaction with Koreans	0.963	0.955	rank 21 of 107
Continent	Europe	48,565 (3.0% of the total)	3.1% of those from Europe

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality), segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals; 0 means the two distributions match and 1 means complete separation. Isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. In the All registered foreigners column the three indices treat all registered foreigners as one group and use the same formulas. In the Relative to total column, rank 1 is the highest value among nationalities with 100 or more registered foreigners that year; in the continent row that column gives this nationality's share of all registered foreigners from the continent.

Figure 1.Italy nationals among registered foreigners, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Note: The vertical scale resets to the size of the selected nationality.

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Year	Italy	Vietnam
2006	226	52,157
2007	220	67,197
2008	240	79,848
2009	285	86,166
2010	315	98,225
2011	340	110,564
2012	367	114,211
2013	470	113,843
2014	746	122,571
2015	621	128,042
2016	635	137,769
2017	670	151,385
2018	737	170,707
2019	861	187,334
2020	783	181,415
2021	872	178,928
2022	1,051	196,883
2023	1,121	227,930
2024	1,291	261,581
2025	1,483	293,907

Table 2.Italy nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Italy Nationality	Share of local foreigners
1	Seoul Yongsan-gu	127	1.0
2	Seoul Mapo-gu	101	0.9
3	Seoul Seodaemun-gu	82	0.5
4	Seoul Seongbuk-gu	66	0.4
5	Seoul Gwanak-gu	62	0.3
6	Seoul Dongdaemun-gu	60	0.3
7	Seoul Seocho-gu	60	1.2
8	Seoul Gangnam-gu	48	0.8
9	Gyeongsangnam-do Geoje-si	42	0.3
10	Seoul Seongdong-gu	41	0.5

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district and nationality).

Note: Nationwide, Italy nationals make up 0.1% of all registered foreigners, so an area whose share is above that holds relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Italy Nationality	Location quotient (LQ)	Share of local foreigners
1	Seoul Yongsan-gu	127	21.8	0.1
2	Seoul Jung-gu	38	11.2	0.0
3	Seoul Mapo-gu	101	9.8	0.0
4	Seoul Jongno-gu	38	9.6	0.0
5	Seoul Seodaemun-gu	82	9.4	0.0
6	Gyeongsangnam-do Geoje-si	42	6.3	0.0
7	Seoul Dongdaemun-gu	60	6.0	0.0
8	Seoul Seongbuk-gu	66	5.4	0.0
9	Seoul Seongdong-gu	41	5.2	0.0
10	Seoul Seocho-gu	60	5.0	0.0

Source: Location quotient from the open dataset.

Note: the location quotient is the local share divided by the national share; above 1.5 counts as over-representation.

Table 4.By status of stay Italy nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Visa category	Persons	Share
Student(D2)	380	25.6
Marriage Migration(F6)	286	19.3
General Trainee(D4)	128	8.6
Working Holiday(H1)	122	8.2
Dependent Family(F3)	86	5.8
Other statuses(ETC)	78	5.3
Specially Designated Activities(E7)	71	4.8
Residential(F2)	65	4.4
Other statuses	267	18.0

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The rows of this table add to 1,483, the whole of the Italy nationality.

Table 5.Age and sex, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Age group	Total	Male	Female	Share
0-4	50	30	20	1.3
5-9	60	26	34	1.6
10-14	82	37	45	2.2
15-19	91	33	58	2.4
20-24	517	140	377	13.7
25-29	783	261	522	20.8
30-34	721	295	426	19.1
35-39	438	259	179	11.6
40-44	297	190	107	7.9
45-49	213	127	86	5.7
50-54	155	90	65	4.1
55-59	149	86	63	4.0
60+	212	119	93	5.6

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 3,768 rather than the 1,483 registered foreigners

Figure 2.Composition by age and sex, 2025Unit: %

Year 2025

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Note: The bar length is the share each cell holds within the whole nationality. This figure alone uses staying foreigners, so its total differs from registered foreigners.

Figure 3.Change in status-of-stay composition, 2008–2025Unit: %

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The share each status holds within this nationality in that year. The five largest statuses in 2025 are drawn.

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Year
2008	7.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	19.6
2009	6.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	20.0
2010	9.2	0.0	5.7	0.0	14.0
2011	9.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	13.5
2012	9.3	7.9	0.0	0.0	14.4
2013	8.7	10.9	5.3	0.0	16.8
2014	9.7	8.1	5.0	0.0	13.6
2015	14.9	11.3	7.2	0.0	13.2
2016	16.7	12.7	5.1	5.0	12.3
2017	17.3	13.0	5.4	0.0	9.9
2018	17.4	13.6	6.5	7.7	8.8
2019	19.0	13.2	5.6	6.3	11.7
2020	12.8	18.9	7.7	0.0	10.3
2021	19.0	21.0	10.8	0.0	8.1
2022	22.6	18.9	10.8	7.6	5.7
2023	24.9	19.2	8.9	9.2	5.4
2024	26.4	18.6	8.8	8.7	5.0
2025	25.6	19.3	8.6	8.2	5.8

Figure 4.Residential segregation and exposure over time, 2014–2025Unit: index

Indicators

Source: Segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals, isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. The three run on different ranges, so they are selected one at a time.

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Year	Index of dissimilarity (D)	Interaction with Koreans
2014	0.684	0.966
2015	0.643	0.966
2016	0.619	0.966
2017	0.613	0.967
2018	0.632	0.965
2019	0.631	0.965
2020	0.592	0.971
2021	0.561	0.970
2022	0.571	0.967
2023	0.548	0.966
2024	0.551	0.964
2025	0.552	0.963

Table 6.Italy nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %

First language		Share
Italian		94.8
Romanian		1.0
Logudorese Sardinian		0.6
Campidanese Sardinian		0.6
Arabic		0.6
Emilian		0.5

Source: Ethnologue 24th edition, first-language shares by country.

Note: the estimated demand on the language page is this share multiplied by the registered foreign population of each nationality. Shares below 0.5% are not listed, and a person who speaks more than one language is not distinguished.

Figure 5.By province, Italy nationality, 2025Unit: persons

Year 2025

Count range

Note: The boundaries are shapes simplified for display and are drawn as pen lines. The fill values are the provincial totals from the yearbook and do not depend on the shapes.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality and district), summed to the province level.

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Province	Italy Nationality	Share of national
Seoul	956	64.5
Gyeonggi-do	177	11.9
Busan	77	5.2
Incheon	59	4.0
Gyeongsangnam-do	56	3.8
Daejeon	37	2.5
Daegu	25	1.7
Chungcheongnam-do	14	0.9
Ulsan	13	0.9
Gyeongsangbuk-do	12	0.8
Chungcheongbuk-do	12	0.8
Gangwon-do	10	0.7
Jeju-do	10	0.7
Jeollabuk-do	9	0.6
Gwangju	7	0.5
Sejong	5	0.3
Jeollanam-do	4	0.3