As part of our DG REGIO project “Study on Cross-Border Data Collection”, which focuses on gathering administrative data on cross-border workers, we have asked participating countries to provide a breakdown of data based on citizenship. However, this request raises an important question: What should be done if a country’s available information refers to nationality rather than citizenship?
While citizenship and nationality are technically distinct concepts, the two terms are often used interchangeably, particularly in administrative and cross-border contexts.
- Citizenship refers to a legal bond between an individual and a state, involving both rights (such as voting and legal protection) and obligations (such as obeying laws and paying taxes). It is a formal status that can be acquired by birth, naturalisation, marriage, or residence, according to national legislation.
- Nationality, on the other hand, in broader contexts, refer to a person’s ethnic, cultural, or historical identity. However, in European Union law and statistical practices, nationality is understood as equivalent to citizenship — that is, it relates to the individual’s legal status as a citizen of a Member State or another country.
To keep the data collection process as straightforward as possible, we are taking a pragmatic approach. Countries may choose to report either citizenship or nationality, depending on what aligns with their administrative practices or is easiest to extract from existing data systems. This choice should be clearly documented in the accompanying metadata. For the sake of consistency across the study, we will refer to the concept as "citizenship" in all project materials, as this is what most countries are expected to report.
The breakdown of data based on citizenship as part of our data collection is outlined in our Data Collection Methodology Guide. To improve our data collection we welcome your feedback on this document.
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