July 26, 2023
In April 2023, 72 630 first-time asylum applicants (non-EU citizens) applied for international protection in EU countries. Compared with April 2022 (54 350), this represents a 34 % increase. There were also 5 310 subsequent applicants, a 5 % decrease compared with April 2022 (5 610).
This information comes from the monthly asylum data published by Eurostat today. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on monthly asylum statistics.
Most first-time asylum applicants were Syrians and Afghans
As in the previous months, in April 2023, Syrians were the largest group of people seeking asylum (9 420 first-time applicants). They were followed by Afghans (7 405), ahead of Venezuelans (5 785), Colombians (4 770) and Turks (4 640).
Following Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, there was a significant increase in Ukrainian first-time asylum applicants (from 2 105 in February 2022 to 12 190 in March 2022), but the numbers have been decreasing monthly down to 895 in April 2023. This is also because people fleeing Ukraine benefit from temporary protection.
In April 2023, the number of first-time asylum applicants with Russian citizenship ranked 12th among all citizenships, with 1 720 applications.
Germany, Spain, France and Italy accounted for 72% of first-time asylum applicants
In April 2023, Germany (20 950), Spain (12 910), France (10 260) and Italy (8 175) received the highest number of first-time asylum applicants, accounting for almost three-quarters (72 %) of all first-time applicants in the EU.
In total in the EU, there were 162 first-time asylum applicants per million people in April 2023.
Compared with the population of each EU country (on 1 January 2023), nine Member States had a higher rate than the overall EU ratio. The lowest rate was observed in Hungary (0.4).
2 625 unaccompanied minors applying for asylum
For more information:
- Statistics Explained article on monthly asylum statistics
- Statistics Explained article on annual asylum statistics
- News article on Ukrainians granted temporary protection in May 2023
- Thematic section on migration and asylum statistics
- Database on asylum statistics
Methodology notes:
- As data for first-time asylum applicants were not available for Czechia for April 2023, March 2023 data were used.
- Due to temporary derogations, data on unaccompanied minor asylum applicants for France, Cyprus and Poland are not available. As a result, these Member States were not included in the calculation. A complete list of derogations is provided in the Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/431.
- Data for Croatia cover officially expressed intentions for international protection at border crossing and not only asylum applicants who actually lodged an asylum application. Therefore, current statistics may overestimate the number of applicants. Eurostat is currently discussing improvements in statistics and a revision of data is possible.
- Statistics on asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors presented in the article refer to the age accepted by the national authorities, however, this is before the age assessment procedure is carried out/completed.
- Data presented in this publication are rounded to the nearest five.