India × Luxembourg in numbers

On 1 January 2026, 5,728 residents of Luxembourg held Indian nationality, 0.83% of the population and the 2nd-largest non-EU nationality after Ukrainians (STATEC). Their number rose by 373% between 2016 and 2026, against 19.9% for the population as a whole. Indian citizens have been the leading citizenship for first residence permits issued by Luxembourg every year since 2018 (Eurostat), and the national immigration report gives them 25.7% of the first EU Blue Cards issued in 2025, the most of any nationality. On 31 March 2026, 3,070 salaried employees of Indian nationality worked in the country, cross-border workers included (IGSS).

The economic links are unequal in size. Goods trade is small: Luxembourg exported €64.2m of goods to India in 2025 and imported €34.2m (Eurostat Comext), and India took 0.42% of Luxembourg's goods exports on STATEC's national concept; services flows, measured in the balance of payments, were larger, at €210.2m sold and €251.8m bought (STATEC). Financial positions are of another order: Eurostat puts Luxembourg's net outward direct investment position in India at €23,852m at the end of 2024, 66% of it through special purpose entities, and investors registered in Luxembourg held 7.1% of all foreign portfolio assets under custody in India at the end of August 2026, the 3rd-largest share by country of registration (NSDL). Those figures measure a fund and holding hub rather than the savings of residents. The two countries are themselves on different scales: India has 2,148 times Luxembourg's population on UN projections for mid-2026 and 38.7 times its GDP at market exchange rates in 2025, while Luxembourg's GDP per capita is 55.4 times India's (IMF).

India has between 2,060 and 2,148 times Luxembourg's population, depending on the series. UN projections for mid-2026 put India at 1,476.6 million people and Luxembourg at 687,448; national sources give 1,423.4 million for India (projection for 1 March 2026) and 690,959 for Luxembourg (STATEC, 1 January 2026). India's GDP is 38.7 times Luxembourg's at market exchange rates (US$3,916bn against US$101.1bn in 2025, IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2026) and 165.4 times at purchasing power parity (PPP). On IMF projections for 2026, India accounts for 8.5% of world GDP at PPP and Luxembourg for 0.049%.

Per head, the order reverses. The IMF puts Luxembourg's GDP per capita at US$148,247 in 2025, 55.4 times India's US$2,675. At PPP, which adjusts for differences in price levels, the multiple is 13.0 (152,966 against 11,789 international dollars). It was 21.4 in 2015, and IMF projections put it at 9.3 in 2031.

Growth and median age differ too. India's statistics ministry (MoSPI) estimates real GDP growth at 7.7% for fiscal year 2025-26 (April 2025 to March 2026), a provisional figure, and at 7.8% year on year for April-June 2026. Luxembourg's real GDP grew by 0.6% in 2025 (STATEC first estimate, March 2026; Eurostat gives the same figure). Half of India's population is younger than 29.2 years, against 39.7 years in Luxembourg (UN projections for mid-2026). India's median age is projected to reach 38.3 years in 2050, the level Luxembourg had in 2015 in the same UN series.

Reading notes. India's last census dates from 2011, so its population figures are modelled. UN figures come from World Population Prospects 2024 (medium variant); India's official projection comes from the Technical Group report dated November 2019, which gives a lower figure, 1,423.4 million for 1 March 2026, against 1,476.6 million in the UN series for mid-2026. Reference dates also differ: 1 January for STATEC, 1 March for the Technical Group, mid-year for the UN and the IMF.

India's national accounts follow an April-March fiscal year; Luxembourg's follow the calendar year. MoSPI's current series (base year 2022-23, released on 27 February 2026) is not comparable with the older series with base year 2011-12, and its 2025-26 figures are provisional. In IMF tables, India's 2025 column covers fiscal year 2025-26. Unless stated otherwise, IMF figures come from the April 2026 World Economic Outlook, which the October 2026 edition will supersede.

Counted by nationality, Indians living in Luxembourg numbered 5,728 on 1 January 2026, against 569 on 1 February 2011. They made up 0.83% of the total population and 23.9% of residents holding an Asian nationality. Between 1 January 2016 and 1 January 2026 their number rose by 373%, while Luxembourg's total population grew by 19.9%. On 1 January 2026, Indian nationals were the 2nd-largest non-EU nationality, after Ukrainians (6,028) and ahead of Chinese nationals (4,937), and the 9th-largest among all foreign nationalities in STATEC's detailed table (government releases of January and September 2026 place the community 10th).

In Eurostat data, Indian citizens received more first residence permits from Luxembourg than any other citizenship in every year from 2018 to 2025: 830 in 2025, after a peak of 1,304 in 2022. The national immigration report, which uses a different definition, counts 985 first permits issued to Indian nationals in 2025 (11.8% of the total, again the most of any nationality). According to the same report, Indian nationals received 263 of the 1,023 first EU Blue Cards issued in 2025 (25.7%) and were also the leading nationality for first researcher and student permits.

Compared with the population as a whole, the community is younger and more recently arrived. On 1 January 2025, 69.6% of Indian nationals were aged 25 to 44, against 31.3% of all residents; 20.0% were under 15 (15.7% overall) and 1.2% were 65 or older (15.2% overall). Of the Indian citizens counted in the 2021 census, 85.7% had arrived in Luxembourg in 2015 or later, against 20.7% of the whole census population. On 31 March 2026, 3,070 salaried employees of Indian nationality worked in Luxembourg, the largest non-EU nationality in the salaried workforce.

Work. Of the 3,070 salaried employees of Indian nationality counted on 31 March 2026, 2,910 lived in Luxembourg, 100 in France and 40 in Germany; the remainder lived in other countries or had no recorded country of residence. Unlike the population figures, this count includes cross-border workers. Indian nationals were the 10th-largest nationality among all salaried employees, Luxembourg nationals included. By sector, 43.6% worked in professional, scientific and technical activities (NACE section M, which includes consulting, legal, accounting and head-office activities), 22.1% in finance and insurance and 15.0% in information and communication. The count was 180 in March 2009. The IGSS rounds every cell to tens (the shares above are computed on rounded figures) and excludes temporary agency workers and international civil servants; the series changed scope in October 2016.

Study and citizenship. The University of Luxembourg had 218 registered students of Indian first nationality in the 2025 reporting year (2.6% of registrations), up from 61 in 2017. Among the nationalities STATEC lists separately, China (156) is the only other non-EU one. Only the first nationality is recorded and incoming exchange students are not counted. In 2025, 167 people of Indian nationality acquired Luxembourg nationality, against 7 in 2015 (Ministry of Justice, 2015); in 2025 India ranked 9th among nationalities of origin (Ministry of Justice, 2025). The 2015 figure falls under the 2008 nationality law and the 2025 figure under the law of 8 March 2017. Of the 2025 total, 78 were naturalisations (Article 14), 76 were options under Article 29 and 13 came through other options, so not all of these acquisitions are naturalisations.

Luxembourg exported €64.2m of goods to India in 2025 and imported €34.2m of goods from India, a goods surplus of €29.9m (Eurostat Comext). Measured on STATEC's national concept, India accounted for 0.42% of Luxembourg's goods exports that year. Machinery (chapter 84 of the Harmonized System, HS) made up 75.4% of goods exports to India in 2025; at the six-digit HS level, the two largest lines were parts of machinery for rubber or plastics (€11.8m) and injection or compression moulds for rubber or plastics (€10.5m). On the import side, organic chemicals (HS 29) were 51.6% of the 2025 total, almost all of it one line, heterocyclic compounds with oxygen hetero-atoms only (€17.4m).

Services flows with India are larger in value than goods flows, although they are measured on a different basis (balance of payments rather than customs trade). In 2025 Luxembourg sold €210.2m of services to India and bought €251.8m (STATEC), a deficit of €41.6m. The services balance, in surplus by €132.8m in 2015, has been in deficit every year since 2020. Over 2015-2025 the deficit was widest in 2023 (€226.4m), the year services imports from India reached €344.6m, their highest level in that period. Financial services made up €64.3m of Luxembourg's 2025 services exports to India.

For goods, the latest figures are monthly and provisional: exports to India rose 46.1% in January-June 2026 compared with January-June 2025, while imports from India fell 35.8%. India's own statistics record larger imports from Luxembourg (US$110.1m in India's 2025-26 fiscal year) than the exports Luxembourg reports; the box below sets out the gap and its possible explanations. At EU level, the EU-India free trade agreement is neither signed nor in force; the end of this section sets out its tariff commitments.

At EU level, goods trade with India came to €118.5bn in 2025: exports of €48.9bn and imports of €69.6bn, an EU deficit of €20.7bn (Eurostat). The EU also ran a services deficit with India in 2025 (€8.6bn, provisional). In its September 2026 proposal, the Commission describes India as the EU's 9th-largest trading partner for goods. Luxembourg accounted for 0.13% of EU goods exports to India in 2025.

The EU and India concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement on 27 January 2026, at the 16th EU-India Summit; talks had opened in 2007, were suspended in 2013 and relaunched in 2022. On 11 September 2026 the Commission sent the Council two proposals, one on signing the agreement (COM(2026) 483) and one on concluding it (COM(2026) 482). As of 2 October 2026 the agreement is neither signed nor in force. Once signed, it requires the European Parliament's consent and a Council decision on conclusion, and India must ratify it, before it can enter into force. The Commission's proposal states that the agreement does not cover any matter outside the EU's exclusive competence. Negotiations on separate agreements on investment protection and on geographical indications, launched on 17 June 2022, are still under way.

The table lists the tariff commitments as the Commission describes them. The duty savings figure is a Commission estimate, not an observed statistic.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) registered in Luxembourg held ₹553,046 crore of assets under custody in India at the end of August 2026 (one crore is ten million rupees), about US$58.1bn at the ECB reference rates for 31 August 2026 (our conversion). That is 7.1% of all FPI assets under custody in India and places Luxembourg 3rd among countries of registration, after the United States and Singapore (NSDL). India's direct investment statistics give a different picture: the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) records US$5,712m of foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflows from Luxembourg between April 2000 and March 2026 (provisional figures), 0.73% of the total, which places Luxembourg 14th among source countries.

The two sources count different things. NSDL assigns holdings to the jurisdiction where the investor is registered: for Luxembourg, mostly Luxembourg-domiciled investment funds, whose investors and managers are largely located elsewhere. A brief by India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), dated March 2025, describes Luxembourg-based investment funds as holding a substantial banking and asset-management market share in portfolio investment in India. In August 2026 these holdings were 89.7% equity, and their value moves with Indian share prices and the rupee as well as with net flows. DPIIT counts only equity inflows, excluding reinvested earnings and other capital, and attributes them to the country they were remitted from: US$545m from Luxembourg in calendar year 2025, or 0.95% of India's total for that year. DPIIT publishes no fiscal-year figure for Luxembourg, so this annual figure is on a calendar-year basis, unlike the cumulative total above, which runs from April to March.

Seen from Luxembourg, Eurostat puts the country's net outward direct investment position in India at €23,852m at the end of 2024, against €1,159m at the end of 2013. Special purpose entities (SPEs), holding and financing structures with little physical presence in Luxembourg, held 66% of it (76% at the end of 2023). The increase in 2023 coincides with a net outward flow of €9,960m that year, €8,934m of it (89.7%) through SPEs; positions also move with valuation changes and reclassifications, so the flow and the change in position cannot be equated. In 2023, the latest year with figures for Germany, France and the EU27, Luxembourg's position was the 3rd-largest among EU reporting countries, after the Netherlands and Germany.

In the other direction, Eurostat shows a negative net inward direct investment position from India (−€179m at the end of 2024): the assets of Luxembourg-resident entities vis-à-vis their Indian direct investors (€217m) exceeded their liabilities towards them (€39m); the difference from the net figure is rounding. This pattern is known as reverse investment. It does not mean that there are no Indian companies in Luxembourg.

On the capital-market side, BSE's India International Exchange (India INX) announced a memorandum of understanding with the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) on 19 November 2020 to develop green and ESG finance; its release says the pact will provide opportunities for dual listing of green bonds. According to the MEA brief, State Bank of India's US$650m green bond was the first dual listing under it, admitted to LuxSE's Securities Official List on 22 November 2021. On 1 June 2022 the two exchanges signed a cooperation agreement at GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City) to facilitate the admission on LuxSE of Indian securities listed on India INX, starting with a €300m seven-year green bond from Power Finance Corporation, registered on LuxSE's Securities Official List and displayed on the Luxembourg Green Exchange. According to the same MEA brief, there are over 250 Indian issuers on LuxSE (no reference date or definition given), and the first masala (rupee-denominated) bond listing there dates from 2008. The MEA brief also lists two agreements between regulators: a cooperation MoU between Luxembourg's financial regulator, the CSSF, and India's International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), signed on 6 January 2022, which could not be cross-checked on either regulator's website, and a supervisory cooperation MoU between India's securities regulator SEBI and the CSSF, effective 2 June 2021, which the CSSF announced in a press release.

India and Luxembourg established diplomatic relations on 1 July 1948. Since their first summit, held online on 19 November 2020, the sources checked record 6 memorandums of understanding (MoUs), all signed between November 2020 and February 2022 (own count), and no new treaty. The treaties that frame taxation and social security are older. The India-Luxembourg double taxation agreement (formally a double taxation avoidance agreement, DTAA) was signed in New Delhi on 2 June 2008 and has applied in Luxembourg since 1 January 2010. Luxembourg's tax administration also publishes a synthesised text reflecting the OECD multilateral instrument (MLI), dated 29 September 2020, so the 2008 text alone is not the full current text.

The India-Luxembourg social security agreement, signed on 30 September 2009 and in force since 1 June 2011 (IGSS), keeps a posted worker covered by the home country's social security when the posting is expected to last no more than 60 months; the competent authorities may agree to extend the posting (Article 9). It coordinates entitlements; it does not merge the two pension systems. The investment treaty was signed in 1997 by India and the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU), not by Luxembourg alone. It was terminated on 22 March 2017, but under its Article 16, investments made or acquired before that date remain protected for 15 years from termination, to 22 March 2032 by calculation (EDIT).

One of those MoUs, signed in February 2022, covers space cooperation. The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) list of international customer satellites, which ends in October 2022, shows 5 satellites with Luxembourg as customer country, launched in 2011 and 2020, before that MoU. Recent visits have gone both ways: Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in New Delhi in March 2025, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Luxembourg on 6 January 2026, a financial mission led by Finance Minister Gilles Roth in February 2026, then Bettel and Economy Minister Lex Delles in India on 7-8 September 2026.

During the September 2026 visit, the two ministers held separate meetings (Luxembourg Government). Bettel met Jaishankar, their second bilateral meeting of 2026, and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal; Delles met Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh about the ISRO space MoU and Minister of State for Steel Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma. On 8 September both ministers attended the opening of a new campus of SES, the Luxembourg-based satellite operator, in Chennai (SES), and an economic reception at the embassy was presented as preparing a future Luxembourg economic mission to India. The only India-Luxembourg summit so far was held online; a state visit to India by the Grand Duke, postponed in 2020 because of COVID-19, is not documented as completed in the sources checked.

The diplomatic network is asymmetric, as the table below shows. On transport, India's civil aviation ministry lists Luxembourg among the countries with an air services agreement with India (list as of 25 February 2022). Cargolux's September 2026 schedule has no Indian destination (scheduled flights only; charters and trucking are not covered).

In 2023, Luxembourg had 14 enterprises controlled from India, with 420 persons employed, according to Eurostat's foreign affiliates statistics (FATS). That is about 0.24% of all persons employed in foreign-controlled enterprises in Luxembourg. These enterprises generated a net turnover of €189.3m and value added of €60.1m. In 2021, there were 12 of them, with 388 persons employed.

In the other direction, Luxembourg enterprises controlled 16 affiliates in India in 2023, compared with 7 in 2021. Eurostat keeps the employment and turnover of these affiliates confidential, so figures on Luxembourg groups in India come from company sources. ArcelorMittal held 60% of the AM/NS India joint venture in March 2025, SES reported more than 600 employees in India in September 2026, and Ceratizit's India page, consulted on 14 September 2026, lists over 500 staff and 3 production sites. These figures have different scopes and dates and cannot be added up.

Among the Indian companies named by the Embassy of India in August 2024, the GLEIF register shows Tata Consultancy Services Luxembourg (entity created in 2005), Infosys Luxembourg (created in 2018, parent Infosys Limited) and Syncordis (ultimate parent Larsen & Toubro Limited). The Indian Business Chamber of Luxembourg (IBCL, launched in March 2009) and the Indian Association Luxembourg (IAL, established in 1991) are presented below; the IAL organised the 11th edition of India Day on 13 September 2026.

Indian Business Chamber of Luxembourg. The IBCL was created in December 2008 and launched in March 2009 as a non-profit, non-political and neutral organisation (the Embassy of India brief of August 2024 dates its constitution to March 2009). Its president is Himanshu Upadhyay, and its founder and chairman emeritus is Sudhir Kumar Kohli, according to its website (consulted 14 September 2026). It publishes no member count.

Indian Association Luxembourg and India Day. The Indian Association Luxembourg (IAL) was established in 1991 as a non-profit cultural organisation. It organised India Day 2026, the 11th edition, on Sunday 13 September 2026 at Place Guillaume II in Luxembourg City, with the support of the Ville de Luxembourg and the Embassy of India in Brussels. Entry was free; the event page gives no attendance figure.

Academic links. The Luxembourg-German-Indian Alliance on Neurodegenerative Diseases and Therapeutics (Lux-GIANT) was founded in 2018. Its steering committee draws on the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), the University of Luxembourg's Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg and the University of Tübingen, together with Indian institutions including NIMHANS Bengaluru, AIIMS New Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh and SCTIMST. The alliance publishes no count of Indian sites or participants.

Associations and festivals. The IAL's useful information page (consulted 1 October 2026) lists 6 Indian regional associations in Luxembourg, by language: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Gujarati. Gujarati Samaj Luxembourg celebrates Navratri, LuxUtsav holds Durga Puja and the IAL held its Diwali Gala 2025 at Cercle Cité on 8 November 2025. At the University of Luxembourg, which had 218 students of Indian first nationality in reporting year 2025, the Indian Students Association Luxembourg (ISAL) organises cultural events to help Indian students integrate. For upcoming dates, see the Indian festivals page of the sitraka.lu agenda.

Only dated and documented steps are listed here. The EU-India free trade agreement is an EU agreement rather than a Luxembourg-India one, and on 2 October 2026 it was neither signed nor in force; the sources give no date for the steps that remain (European Commission).

The other entries come from statistical calendars: which vintage this page uses and which release will replace it. None of them is a forecast, and each names the document or series it rests on.

Sources. Luxembourg figures come from STATEC (LUSTAT tables, STATNEWS, the 2021 census and the Note de conjoncture), the CTIE, the IGSS, the 2025 activity report of the Ministry of Home Affairs (immigration), the Ministry of Justice, the Administration des contributions directes and government or embassy releases. European figures come from Eurostat (Comext for goods trade, and the migration, foreign affiliates, balance of payments and national accounts datasets), from Council of the EU documents and European Commission press releases, with ECB reference rates for currency conversions. Indian figures come from MoSPI, DPIIT, TradeStat (Ministry of Commerce), NSDL, ISRO, the National Commission on Population and the bilateral briefs of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Embassy of India in Brussels. Scale comparisons use the IMF World Economic Outlook of April 2026, the UN World Population Prospects 2024 and World Bank indicators. Treaty data come from the World Trade Institute's EDIT database; company data from the GLEIF register and from company releases, and are labelled as company figures, not statistics.

Verification. Each theme was researched first, then checked by a second, independent pass that opened every source and located the line each figure comes from. That pass confirmed 140 facts, corrected 15 (the corrected value is the one shown) and added 30 of its own; the 51 data series were checked the same way, and 2 were corrected. Items that could not be traced to a primary source were dropped rather than published with a warning.

Vintages. The sources follow different calendars: India's national accounts, investment and trade statistics run from April to March, STATEC counts residents on 1 January, India's Technical Group projects the population for 1 March, and the UN and the IMF work at mid-year. Each figure therefore states its own reference period next to its source, and provisional or projected values say so. Data as of 14 September 2026, with additions and checks up to 2 October 2026; the IMF's October 2026 World Economic Outlook will supersede the April 2026 edition used here.

Languages and reuse. The page is published in English and French. Each chart is followed by its data table, and every figure and series can be downloaded as JSON or CSV with its source link, under a CC BY 4.0 licence.