Religious affiliation of foreigners in Italy 2026

Religious affiliation of the foreign population in Italy in 2026

Italy is home to more than five million foreign residents, and their religious profile is very different from that of the native population. In 2026, Islam is the single largest religion among foreigners, with about 30% of foreign residents, or roughly 1.6 million people. Close behind comes Eastern Orthodox Christianity at around 29%, then Catholicism at 17%. Yet when all Christian traditions are added together, Christians, not Muslims, are the clear majority of the foreign population, at roughly 53%. This is the mirror image of the citizen picture, where Catholicism overwhelmingly dominates and minorities are small. Understanding the religion of foreigners is therefore essential to understanding how faith in Italy is actually changing, a theme we also explore in our Italian citizens belonging to religious minorities analysis. Read side by side, the two studies show how differently religion is distributed between those born into Italian society and those who have migrated to it.

The numbers behind these shares are substantial. Around 1.6 million foreign Muslims, 1.5 million Orthodox Christians and 900,000 Catholics live in Italy, alongside roughly 370,000 other Christians, half a million people with no religion, and smaller communities of Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs. These are not fringe figures: each of the top groups is larger than most of Italy's home-grown religious minorities. Immigration has, in effect, imported entire religious communities, transforming Islam and Orthodoxy from marginal presences into major national faiths. The result is a foreign population that is both more Christian and more Muslim than many Italians assume, with a relatively small share reporting no religion at all compared with native citizens. That higher level of religious affiliation among immigrants partly offsets the steady secularisation of the native-born, slowing the overall decline of religious identity in Italy.

A few definitions help in reading the data. These figures count foreign residents, that is, non-citizens, and exclude immigrants who have already acquired Italian citizenship. They are drawn mainly from the Fondazione ISMU and ISTAT, with country-of-origin detail added from migration records. The shares are well established and stable from year to year, while some absolute totals and origin counts are estimates that move as migration flows change. The foreign population itself has grown steadily for two decades, from under two million in the early 2000s to over five million today, one of the largest demographic transformations in modern Italian history. Each of those new arrivals brings a faith, reshaping the religious balance of the country. The pace and direction of that change depend heavily on where future migrants come from, since each sending country brings its own dominant faith into the mix.

Foreign Population of Italy by Religion: Full Table

The table makes the contrast with native Italians clear. Among foreigners, the top three faiths, Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism, are each counted in the hundreds of thousands to over a million, and together they cover more than three-quarters of the foreign population. The Christian groups combined outweigh Islam, but only because they are split across Orthodox, Catholic and other denominations. The non-religious share, at about 10%, is notably smaller than among Italian citizens, suggesting that immigrants are, on average, more religiously affiliated than the native-born. Below the leading faiths, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs form a modest but distinct tier, mirroring the layered diversity seen across faiths in our global coverage of religion and migration. What ties the whole table together is the simple fact that immigration has made Italy measurably more religiously plural than it was a single generation ago.

Foreigners in Italy by Religion: Percentage Shares

Seen as percentages, the balance among foreign faiths is remarkably close at the top. Muslims make up about 30% of foreign residents, Orthodox Christians 29%, and Catholics 17%, with another 7% belonging to other Christian denominations such as Evangelicals and Copts. Roughly 10% report no religion, while Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs together account for the final 7% or so. The near-tie between Islam and Orthodoxy is the headline story, and it has only recently tipped in Islam's favour as Muslim arrivals have outpaced Orthodox ones. Islam's leading position among foreigners echoes its global scale, explored in our countries with the largest Muslim population analysis. Within Italy, that global pattern plays out at a smaller scale, with Muslim arrivals steadily reshaping the religious balance of cities and regions across the peninsula.

These shares carry real weight for how Italy experiences religious diversity. Because no single faith dominates the foreign population, integration and recognition are not a one-faith question but a multi-religious one, touching mosques, Orthodox parishes, Catholic chaplaincies for migrants and a range of smaller communities at once. The relatively even split also means public debate that focuses only on Islam misses the larger Christian presence among immigrants, especially the Orthodox. As migration continues, these percentages will keep shifting, but the basic pattern, a Muslim plurality inside a Christian majority, has held for several years and looks set to persist into the second half of the decade. Even small annual shifts in these shares attract attention, because they hint at which faith communities will shape Italian society most strongly in the years ahead.

Foreigners by Broad Religious Group

Grouping foreign residents into broad blocs highlights the central paradox of the data. Christians of all kinds number about 2.8 million, comfortably the largest bloc, while Muslims number around 1.6 million. People with no religion total roughly half a million, and all other religions combined, mainly Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs, add a further 390,000 or so. So the headline that Islam is the largest single religion sits alongside the equally true fact that Christianity is the majority faith. Both statements describe the same population from different angles, a nuance that often gets lost in coverage of immigration and religion across the continent, as our religion in Europe analysis shows.

The size of the Christian bloc surprises many observers, because immigration in Italy is so often discussed in terms of Islam alone. In reality, the largest single national group of immigrants, Romanians, is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian, and other major communities from the Philippines, Ukraine and Latin America are Christian too. This means immigration has reinforced Christianity in Italy at least as much as it has expanded Islam, even as overall religious practice declines. The scale of the foreign population, now well over five million and still rising, magnifies the effect, a demographic force whose sheer weight we examine in our world population analysis of global growth and movement.

Inside the Christian Majority Among Foreigners

Since Christians are the largest bloc, it is worth looking inside that majority. Of the roughly 2.8 million Christian foreigners, about 1.5 million are Eastern Orthodox, some 900,000 are Catholic, and around 370,000 belong to other Christian denominations, including Evangelicals, Protestants and Copts. Orthodoxy is therefore the dominant Christian tradition among immigrants, a sharp reversal of the citizen picture where Catholicism reigns. This Orthodox weight comes overwhelmingly from Romania, the single largest source of foreigners in Italy, alongside Ukraine, Moldova and other Eastern European countries. The contrast with the heavily Catholic native population is one of the most striking features of the data, and it echoes the Catholic patterns examined in our Catholic population in Germany analysis. The dominance of Orthodoxy among immigrant Christians is one of the clearest signs of how thoroughly migration has diversified a country once almost entirely Catholic.

This internal breakdown matters because it shapes how immigrant Christianity interacts with Italian society. Orthodox immigrants have built a dense network of parishes serving Romanian, Ukrainian and Moldovan communities, often using churches shared with or lent by Catholic dioceses. Catholic immigrants, meanwhile, blend more readily into existing parish life, which can make their numbers less visible even though they are large. The smaller Evangelical and Coptic communities are among the fastest-growing, adding new strands to a Christian landscape once defined almost entirely by Catholicism. The overall effect is a more varied Christianity than Italy has known for centuries, comparable to the denominational mix detailed in our religion in England and Wales analysis. Each new immigrant denomination adds another thread to a Christian tapestry that, only a few decades ago, was woven almost exclusively in Catholic colours.

Citizens vs Foreigners: Two Different Religious Worlds

Placing citizen and foreign figures side by side reveals two very different religious worlds. Among Italian citizens, there are about 566,000 Muslims and 445,000 Orthodox Christians, both small minorities in a Catholic country. Among foreigners, those same faiths swell to roughly 1.6 million Muslims and 1.5 million Orthodox, several times larger. In other words, the bulk of Italy's Muslim and Orthodox populations are not citizens but foreign residents. Immigration is the single biggest driver of religious diversity in the country, turning faiths that are marginal among citizens into major national communities, part of the global link between migration and belief explored in our world religions analysis. The same dynamic, in which migration rather than conversion drives religious change, can be seen across much of western Europe in the early twenty-first century.

The gap between the two groups is not permanent. Many foreign Muslims and Orthodox Christians are first-generation migrants who have not yet acquired citizenship, so they appear only in the foreign figures. As they naturalise and as their children are born Italian, more of these believers will cross over into the citizen statistics, gradually enlarging the recorded minorities among citizens. Over time, the citizen and foreign religious profiles will slowly converge, making Italy's official religious map look far more diverse than it does today. For now, reading the two datasets together is the only way to see the full scale of Islam and Orthodoxy in contemporary Italy. Treating the foreign and citizen figures as a single combined picture is the only reliable way to gauge the true national size of each major religious community.

Where Italy's Muslim Foreigners Come From

The Muslim foreigners who make up the largest single religion in Italy come from a handful of key countries. Moroccans remain by far the largest established group, at just over 400,000, though their numbers have edged down in recent years. Behind them, communities from Bangladesh and Pakistan are growing rapidly, each now approaching 170,000 to 180,000 residents, having overtaken the long-settled Albanian community of around 150,000. Egypt, Senegal and other North and West African countries add further numbers. This shift in origins, from North Africa toward South Asia, is quietly changing the character of Muslim life in Italy, a pattern that complements the non-Catholic dynamics in our non-Catholic believers in Spain analysis. Spain, another historically Catholic society now being reshaped by immigration, offers a close parallel to the Italian experience of a diversifying religious landscape.

These origin patterns shape how Islam is practised and perceived in Italy. The older Moroccan and Albanian communities are more settled, often second-generation, and more integrated into Italian working life, while the newer Bangladeshi and Pakistani arrivals are concentrated in specific cities and sectors. Albanians, though counted among the largest Muslim-origin groups, include many who are secular or Christian, a reminder that national origin and religion do not map perfectly onto each other. Lombardy, Italy's most populous region, hosts the largest concentration of Muslim foreigners, with Moroccans the leading group there. As these communities mature, their religious institutions and visibility are steadily expanding across the country. New mosques, prayer rooms and cultural associations continue to open, reflecting communities that are settling permanently rather than passing through on their way elsewhere.

Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs Among Foreigners

Beyond the Abrahamic faiths, Italy's foreign population includes growing Eastern religious communities. Among foreigners there are roughly 180,000 Buddhists, 120,000 Hindus and 90,000 Sikhs in 2026. The Buddhists come mainly from Sri Lanka, China and other Asian countries, the Hindus largely from India and Sri Lanka, and the Sikhs predominantly from the Indian state of Punjab, with many working in agriculture across the Po Valley. Though small relative to the Muslim and Christian totals, these communities are highly visible in certain regions and have built temples and gurdwaras that anchor immigrant life, much like the minority faith communities mapped in our religious communities in Finland analysis.

The Sikh community in particular has become a notable feature of rural Italy, where Punjabi workers play a central role in dairy farming and the production of some of the country's most famous cheeses. Hindu and Buddhist communities, while more dispersed, have established cultural and religious centres in major cities. Together these Eastern faiths add a further layer to a foreign population that already spans Islam and several branches of Christianity. Their steady growth, driven by continued migration from South and East Asia, ensures that Italy's religious diversity will keep widening, even if the headline contest remains between Islam and the various Christian traditions. For now these Eastern faiths stay a small share of the foreign total, but their visibility in particular trades and regions gives them an influence beyond their raw numbers.

Evangelicals, Copts and Other Christian Foreigners

Within the Christian majority, the roughly 370,000 foreigners who are neither Orthodox nor Catholic form a fast-changing group. Evangelicals and other Protestants are the largest part, at around 183,000, and have seen some of the strongest recent growth of any Christian community among foreigners. Coptic Christians, mainly from Egypt, number about 85,000, while a further 100,000 or so belong to a range of smaller Christian traditions. These communities are reshaping Italian Protestantism from below, adding immigrant congregations to the historic churches, a development that connects to our evangelical church members in Germany analysis of Protestant growth across Europe.

The growth of immigrant Evangelical and Pentecostal congregations is one of the quieter but more significant religious trends in Italy. Many of these churches serve African and Latin American communities and worship in their own languages, often filling halls and former cinemas rather than traditional church buildings. Coptic parishes, meanwhile, anchor the large Egyptian community, especially in Lombardy and the major cities. Taken together, these other Christian foreigners are diversifying Italian Christianity well beyond the Catholic-Orthodox divide, and they overlap with the home-grown denominations covered in our Italian Protestants by denomination analysis.

The Growth of Italy's Foreign Population

The religious profile of foreigners only matters because the foreign population itself has grown so dramatically. According to ISTAT, the number of foreign residents climbed from about 4.2 million in 2010 to just over 5.0 million by 2015, holding near that level through 2020 before rising again to around 5.1 million in 2023 and an estimated 5.4 million by 2025. Each wave of arrivals has carried its own religious mix, steadily building the Muslim, Orthodox and other communities described here. This long climb in foreign residents is the engine behind Italy's changing religious map, a demographic shift that parallels the generational changes traced in our belief in God in France by age analysis.

This growth is unlikely to reverse, even if its pace varies with economic conditions and migration policy. Italy's low birth rate and ageing population mean that immigration is now the main source of demographic renewal, and with it comes continued religious change. As the foreign population edges past 5.4 million and beyond, the Muslim, Orthodox and Eastern-religion communities will keep expanding, while naturalisation steadily transfers some of these believers into the citizen statistics. The combined effect is a country whose religious composition is being reshaped from two directions at once: a declining Catholic majority among citizens, and a fast-growing, highly diverse foreign population layered on top of it. The interaction of these two trends, secular decline among citizens and religious growth through migration, will define the country's spiritual character for decades to come.

Religion of Foreigners in Italy: The Key Numbers

Pulling the figures together, the religion of foreigners in Italy in 2026 is a study in contrasts. Islam leads as the single largest faith at about 1.6 million residents, just ahead of Eastern Orthodox Christianity at 1.5 million, with Catholics at 900,000 and other Christians at 370,000. Around half a million foreigners report no religion, while Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs add a further 390,000 or so. Yet step back, and Christians of all kinds form the 53% majority, even as Islam claims the top single spot. This blend of a Muslim plurality inside a Christian majority is the defining feature of immigrant faith in Italy today. It is a balance with few parallels in Europe, where most countries see either a clearly Christian or a clearly secular immigrant population rather than this close split.

Taken together, the figures show that Italy's foreign population is reshaping the country's religious life in ways the headline Catholic identity conceals. A near-even split between Islam and Orthodoxy at the top, a large but internally divided Christian majority, and a small but growing tier of Eastern faiths all combine to make immigrant religion a central force in modern Italy. For researchers, faith organisations and policymakers, the lesson is that the foreign and citizen pictures must be read together, and that these counts should be revisited with each new ISMU and ISTAT release as migration continues to redraw the religious map of Italy. Until then, the safest summary is that Italy's foreigners are neither overwhelmingly Muslim nor uniformly Christian, but a genuinely mixed population whose faith mirrors the world's own diversity.

Frequently Asked Questions: Religion of Foreigners in Italy