Bulgaria remained in recession through 2012 and into 2013. Economic contraction and persistent high unemployment remain an incentive for emigration, albeit at a lower level than in the past. Official external migration figures (which only include persons who have declared address changes from or to a foreign address) captured about 8 200 immigrants in 2012 and 10 500 immigrants in 2013, with net migration of ‑650 in 2012 and +650 in 2013. Actual figures are much higher. However, return migration from abroad also remains low, even if Bulgaria’s emigrant population is concentrated in Spain and Greece, where the employment situation remains bleak, and in the United Kingdom. On 1 January 2014 the transitional restrictions on Bulgarian migrants in the EU expired; there is no evidence that this has led to substantially larger outflows to those countries which had previously imposed labour market restrictions.