The European Union's asylum landscape underwent a significant transformation in 2025, with Venezuelans becoming the largest group of first-time asylum seekers for the first
time since records began tracking recent migration trends.
According to newly released EU figures, member states registered 669,710 first-time asylum applications in 2025, while authorities issued 325,955 positive first-instance decisions and a further 49,025 positive rulings following appeals or reviews.
The latest data highlight how migration pressures and humanitarian crises have evolved over the past decade. While asylum applications remain substantial, they are considerably below the peak reached during Europe's migration crisis in 2015, when 1.22 million people sought asylum across the bloc. That surge led to a record 662,955 positive first-instance decisions in 2016 and the highest number of successful appeal decisions in 2018, when 103,365 applicants were granted protection after challenging initial rulings.
A notable shift emerged in the composition of asylum seekers. Venezuelan nationals submitted 89,455 first-time applications in 2025, accounting for 13.4% of all claims lodged in the EU. Afghans ranked second with 63,900 applications (9.5%), maintaining their position among the largest groups seeking protection in Europe.
Meanwhile, Syrians — long the dominant nationality among asylum applicants since the outbreak of the country's civil war — fell to third place with 40,405 applications, representing 6.0% of the total. It marks the first year since 2014 that Syrians have not topped the EU's asylum statistics.
Alongside asylum procedures, the EU continued to provide large-scale protection to people displaced by Russia's war against Ukraine. In 2025, member states granted temporary protection status to 683,475 people fleeing the conflict.
However, that figure remains well below the unprecedented levels recorded in 2022, when the EU activated its Temporary Protection Directive for the first time in history. During that year alone, 4.33 million Ukrainians received protection across the bloc.
The figures were released ahead of World Refugee Day on 20 June, an annual observance aimed at raising awareness of the millions of people worldwide forced to flee conflict, persecution and instability in search of safety. Photo by Mstyslav Chernov, Wikimedia commons.