Sharp fall of first-time asylum applications in August 2024 – Eurostat

There were also 6 285 subsequent applicants, representing a 4.6% increase compared with August 2023 (6 010).

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.

Source: Eurostat – Dataset: migr_asyappctzm

Syrians, Afghans and Venezuelans remain the largest groups of asylum seekers

In August 2024, Syrians remained the largest group of people seeking asylum (13 340 first-time applicants), followed by Afghans (5 605) and Venezuelans (4 690).

Germany, Spain, France and Italy received 70% of first-time applicants

Germany (18 425), Spain (10 580), France (10 035) and Italy (9 620) continued to receive the highest number of first-time asylum applicants, accounting for 70% of all first-time applicants in the EU.

The EU total rate of first-time asylum applicants in August 2024 was 15.4 per hundred thousand people. Compared with the population of each EU country (on 1 January 2024), the highest rates of first-time applicants were recorded in Greece (59.9), ahead of Ireland (31.5).

2 980 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum

A total of 2 980 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum for the first time in the EU, with most of them coming from Syria (1 090), Afghanistan (360), Egypt (275) and Somalia (225).

Source: Eurostat – dataset: migr_asyumactm

The EU country that received the highest number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors was Germany (715), followed by Bulgaria (480), the Netherlands (440), Greece (365) and Belgium (230).