The European Union flags flutter in front of EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Oct. 12, 2012. (Xinhua/Wu Wei)

BRUSSELS, Oct.27 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) have issued 2.6 million first residence permits to non-EU citizens in 2015, reaching its highest record since 2008 and increasing by 12.1 percent compared with 2014, Eurostat said on Thursday.

According to a report issued by the statistics agency, the largest first residence permits were issued in Britain, with a number of 633,000 residence permits, followed by Poland, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Citizens of Ukraine, with a number of 500,000 beneficiaries, received the highest number of permits, ahead of citizens of the United States, China, India, Syria and Morocco.

Ukrainians benefited from residence permits mainly for employment reasons. Chinese and Brazilians were mainly for education reasons, while Moroccans and Turks mainly for family reasons.

For all first residence permits issued in the EU in 2015, family remained the main reason of deliverance, followed by employment.