In the EU27, money sent by migrants to their former country of residence, usually referred to as workers' remittances, amounted to 31.8 bn euro in 2008, compared with 31.3 bn in 2007 and 19.4 bn in 2004. These figures include both intra-EU27 and extra-EU27 flows.

The increase in workers' remittances over recent years was mainly due to a sharp rise in extra-EU27 flows (from 11.5 bn in 2004 to 22.5 bn in 2008), while intra-EU27 flows rose less rapidly (from 7.9 bn to 9.3 bn). Consequently, the share of extra-EU27 remittances in the total has risen from 59% in 2004 to 71% in 2008.

In 2008, two thirds of the total outflow of workers' remittances from the EU27 came from Spain (7.8 bn euro or 25% of total EU27 remittances), Italy (6.4 bn or 20%), France (3.4 bn or 11%) and Germany (3.1 bn or 10%).