The Diplomat
European Union countries received 66,800 asylum applications in January of this year. Spain ranks second, with almost 20 percent of applications.
The figure of 66,800 asylum seekers represents an eight percent increase compared to December 2024 (62,075) and a 24 percent decrease compared to January 2024 (87,890), according to the latest monthly asylum data published Tuesday by Eurostat.
Venezuelans constituted the largest group of asylum seekers that month (8,325 first-time applicants), replacing Syrians, who had been the largest group since May 2022. They were followed by Syrian nationals (7,055) and Afghans (5,635).
Germany (14,920), Spain (13,225), France (11,895), Italy (10,905), and Greece (5,200) received the largest number of first-time asylum seekers, representing 84 percent of all cases in the EU. In the case of Spain, which ranks second among countries with the most applications, this figure corresponds to 19.8 percent of the entire EU.
The overall EU rate of first-time asylum seekers in January 2025 was 14.9 per 100,000 people. Compared to the population of each EU country (as of January 1, 2024), the highest rates of first-time applicants were recorded in Greece (50.0), ahead of Luxembourg (27.7) and Spain (27.2).
Likewise, 2,145 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum for the first time in the EU in January 2025, most of them from Egypt (380), Syria (360), and Afghanistan (300). The EU country that received the highest number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors was Germany (620), followed by Greece (460) and Spain (355).