First residence permit means a residence permit issued to a person for the first time, and if the time gap between the expiry of the previous permit and the start of validity of the new permit is at least 6 months. Residence permit means any authorisation or visa valid for at least 3 months issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a non-EU citizen to stay legally on its territory. Statistics on first residence permits presented in this report refer to non-EU citizens only.