Silvinjo (current coach of the national football team), De Biazi (former coach of the national football team), and Albano (famous Italian singer) are currently Albanian citizens – to continue with Lorik Cana, Berat Gjimshiti, as well as many other athletes and artists.

Beyond the well-known names, there are also over 420 not-so-famous Albanian citizens who, with the above celebrities, share the fact that they were born outside Albania (Graph 1, below).

The vast majority of these 420 thousand Albanian citizens born outside Albania were registered in the Civil Registry after 2011. The main reason for the mass registration: The 'baby bonus' incentive - for every child born to Albanian citizens, the state paid a 'baby bonus' (regardless of whether they were born abroad).

Another reason has been the acquisition of Albanian citizenship by thousands of our compatriots born in surrounding Albanian territories (for reasons of visa-free movement in Europe or for patriotic reasons).

How many of the 4.28 million Albanian citizens born in Albania currently reside here? According to INSTAT, about 2.35 million. The rest (1.93 million) reside outside Albania (Graph 2, above). For comparison, the 1989 census showed that 3.18 million citizens born in Albania resided here.

So for 36 years we have had a 26% decrease in the population living in the country.

If we count only the 4.28 million Albanian citizens born in Albania, about 45% of them currently reside abroad. In 2011 this percentage was 34%, in 2001 it was 24%, and in 1989 it was only 1% (Graph 3, below).

The period 1989-2001 was the most intense period of emigration - a full 917 thousand citizens born in Albania left the country (almost half of the total number of emigrants).

Then the pace of emigration fell – in the period 2001-2011, another 495 thousand emigrants were added (over a quarter of the total number of emigrants) and in the period 2011-2025, another 488 thousand were added (a quarter of the total number of emigrants – see Chart 4, above).