Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of the agglomeration economies as pull factor of international migration between the European Union and the countries involved in the European Neighbouring Policy.

Design/methodology/approach
– The applied research is conducted in the 1970-2000 period by using a gravitational model and estimated by linear and non-linear models with a wide fixed-effects structure.

Findings
– The main finding of this work is the fact that increasing urbanisation matters more as a pull factor than improvements in GDP per capita. The interpretation of these results may be linked with the existence of opportunities arising in cities. Besides, immigrants not only look for monetary outcomes from migrating, but also non-economic territorial features.

Originality/value
– Few works have analysed previously the role of urbanisation on international migration flows.