I describe the extent and structure of cross-border commuting in the EU 27 to show that this is important only in a small number of border regions with strong linguistic, historic or institutional ties. Cross-border commuters are mostly medium skilled, male manufacturing workers, who have higher over- but lower under-education rates than non-commuters, internal commuters and established migrants. These findings can mostly be attributed to cross-border commuters from the 12 new EU member countries. Cross-border commuters from the EU 15 have higher under- and lower over-education rates than non-commuters.