First-time asylum applicants up by a quarter in 2021

On March 23, 2022, the report on statistics on applications for international protection for 2021 was published  

In 2021, 535 000 first-time asylum applicants (non-EU citizens) applied for international protection in the EU Member States.

More than half (54%) of the first-time asylum applicants in 2021 had Asian citizenship, while 25% had African citizenship, 10% European citizenship (non-EU) and 9% American citizenship. 

Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis lodged the most applications for asylum, together accounting for almost 40% of all first applicants in the EU Member States in 2021.

Compared with the population of each Member State, the highest number of registered first-time asylum applicants in 2021 was recorded in Cyprus (14 799 first-time applicants per million residents), In contrast, the lowest numbers were recorded in Hungary (4 first-time applicants per million population). 

The full explanation of the statistics can be found here.

Source: Eurostat
 

Page