Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union
1.2. Contact organisation unit
F2: Population and migration
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
7 April 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
7 April 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
7 April 2025
3.1. Data description
Data series on asylum applications contain statistical information based on Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 with reference to:
Asylum, first time and subsequent applicants by age, sex, citizenship and status of minors.
Persons subject of asylum applications pending at the end of reference period by age, sex, citizenship and status of minors.
Asylum applications withdrawn by age, sex, citizenship, type of withdrawal and status of minors.
Asylum applicants having had their applications processed under the accelerated procedure by age, sex, citizenship and status of minors.
Applicants having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year.
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors by age, sex and citizenship.
Data are presented by country and aggregated for the European Union.
Data are rounded to the nearest 5.
3.2. Classification system
The classification of codes on the reporting country (GEO) and on the country of citizenship of asylum applicants (CITIZEN) corresponds to the ISO 3166 code-list (3166-1 alpha-2) with the exception of:
Greece where the code "EL" was adopted (instead of "GR") and
United Kingdom where the code "UK" was adopted (instead of "GB").
Classification
Eurostat breakdown
Age
0-13, 14-17, 18-34, 35-64, 65 and over, Unknown for asylum applicants and
0-13, 14-15, 16-17, Unknown for asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors
Sex
Male, Female, Unknown
Citizenship
ISO 3166 alpha-2
Status of minor
Unaccompanied minor, Accompanied minor, Unknown, Not applicable
Type of withdrawal
Explicit, Implicit, Unknown
3.3. Coverage - sector
Asylum migration - international protection statistics.
Application for international protection means request made by a third-country national or a stateless person for protection from a Member State, who can be understood to seek refugee status or subsidiary protection status, and who does not explicitly request another kind of protection, outside the scope of Directive 2011/95/EU, that can be applied for separately.
Concepts
Definitions
Asylum applicant
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period.
First-time asylum applicant
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period and applying for international protection for the first time.
Subsequent asylum applicant
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted a subsequent application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period.
Person subject of asylum application pending at the end of the month
Third-country national or stateless person who is a subject of application for international protection under consideration by the responsible national authority at the end of the month.
Asylum application withdrawn
Application for international protection having been withdrawn during the reference period, disaggregated by explicit and implicit withdrawal.
Asylum applicant having had application processed under accelerated procedure
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period and having had their applications processed under the accelerated procedure.
Applicant having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member and having benefited from material reception conditions providing an adequate standard of living for applicants.
Status of minor
The status of minor (person below the age of 18) applicant or person subject to asylum decision can be either accompanied or unaccompanied by an adult responsible for the minor during the asylum application procedure.
Asylum applicant considered to be unaccompanied minor
An unaccompanied minor is a person aged less than 18 years who arrives on the territory of an EU Member State not accompanied by an adult responsible for the minor, or a minor who is left unaccompanied after having entered the territory of a Member State. The age of unaccompanied minors refers to the age accepted by the national authority, and, in some cases, the age determined by the age assessment procedure.
3.5. Statistical unit
All data explicitly refer to the number of persons. The data on asylum applications withdrawn are related to the number of persons rather than cases.
3.6. Statistical population
Statistical population for data on asylum applications are third-country nationals, i.e. any person who is not a citizen of the European Union within the meaning of Article 17(1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons.
3.7. Reference area
EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Montenegro.
Croatia from January 2012.
Montenegro from January 2018.
United Kingdom until November 2020.
3.8. Coverage - Time
According Regulation (EC) No 862/2007, statistics on asylum applications have been collected since January 2008. Some other statistics or disaggregation were introduced later. (Statistics | Eurostat)
In addition, some statistics collected previously on a voluntary basis are available for the period 1985-2007. (Statistics | Eurostat)
Datasets
Complete data series
Data later or missing
Asylum applicants
Data since January 2008 – BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH (30)
HR – since January 2013; ME – since January 2018; UK – from January 2009 to November 2020 (3)
First-time asylum applicants
Data since January 2008 – BE, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, IT, CY, LV, MT, NL, PL, PT, SI, SE, NO, CH (17)
FR, LT – since January 2009; ES, SK – since January 2010; LU – since March 2010; BG, EL, RO – since January 2011; FI – since January 2012; HR, HU – since January 2013, AT – since January 2014; IS – since January 2015; LI – since January 2016; ME – since January 2018; UK – until November 2020 (16)
Subsequent asylum applicants
Data since January 2021 – BE, BG, CZ, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (30)
DK – no data; CY - since January 2024; UK – not applicable (3)
Pending asylum applications
Data since January 2008 – BG, CZ, DE, EE, IE, ES, IT, LV, LT, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, IS, LI, CH (22)
BE – no data for October, November 2009, February, March, June 2010; DK – since February 2008; EL – since December 2009; FR – since March 2008; HR – since January 2013; CY – no data from March 2008 until November 2010, May 2011 until December 2013; LU – since December 2009; SE – no data for February 2008; NO – since January 2009; ME – since January 2018; UK – from June 2010 to November 2020 (11)
Asylum applications withdrawn
Data since January 2008 – BE, BG, CZ, DE, EE, EL, FR, IT, LV, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO (23)
DK – since January 2010; IE – no data for February, April 2017; ES – no data for June 2013; HR – since January 2013; CY – no data from March 2008 until January 2009; LT – no data for January, March 2017; SK – no data for June 2017; CH – no data for July 2017; ME – since January 2018; UK – until November 2020 (10)
Asylum applicants having had application processed under accelerated procedure
Data since January 2021 – BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, NL, AT, PL, PT, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (27)
BE – since January 2022; IE – since November 2022; CY – since January 2024; MT – since January 2023; RO – since January 2024; UK – not applicable (6)
Applicants having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
Data since 2021 – BE, BG, CZ, DK, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH (27)
DE, CY, RO – no data; HR – since 2023; UK – not applicable; ME – no data for 2022 (6)
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minor
Data since 2008 – BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH (30)
HR – since 2012; ME – since 2018; UK – until 2019 (3)
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number of persons.
Calendar month and calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
Compilation of statistics on asylum applications is based on Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 and amending Regulation (EU) 2020/852, which depicts in detail the data provisions Member States are bound to supply Eurostat with.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Not applicable.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Data on asylum applications are not confidential.
8.1. Release calendar
Statistical information is published in accordance with an approved release calendar.
Eurostat has developed an asylum metadata and quality questionnaire to ensure the compliance of Member States with the requirements of Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007.
According to Article 9 of the Regulation, Member States must report to Eurostat on the data sources used, the reasons for the selection of these sources and the effects of the selected data on the quality of the statistics.
Member States collect the required data following the guidelines and instructions provided by Eurostat. Consistency checks are performed before data is published.
In addition, to ensure that the statistical practices used in the compilation of asylum data are in compliance with the methodological requirements and that best practices in the field of asylum statistics are followed, Eurostat organises every year a dedicated Working Group on asylum and managed migration statistics, where quality and methodological issues are discussed with national data providers.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Asylum statistics are based on administrative sources. Certain differences in definitions and practices of producing asylum statistics exist between countries. However, the Member States are generally following the requirements of the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 and the quality of the data may be assessed as good or very good.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Users of Eurostat asylum statistics are:
various policy DGs in the European Commission, like DG Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) for designing, funding and implementing asylum related policies in the EU,
European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) for statistical and analytical reports,
European Parliament,
national authorities (Ministries of Interior, Ministries of Justice, immigration agencies) who use Asylum data to monitor or project the development of their national asylum procedures,
European Migration Network (EMN) for statistical and analytical reports,
researchers and students conducting analysis and research in the field of asylum,
journalists and international organisations in the area of asylum and migration.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Eurostat user satisfaction surveys are carried out at least once every 2 years. In addition, the user satisfaction is monitored on a constant way through informal and formal contacts and communications with users and through requests and comments received by users.
12.3. Completeness
Completeness of data on asylum applicants depends largely on the availability of data from the relevant data providers (Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes).
The following table describes the completeness of data from 2021.
Datasets
All required disaggregation
Missing disaggregation
Asylum applicants
BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (29)
Missing status of minors – FR (2021M01-2022M12), CY (2021M01-2023M12), PL (2021M11- 2023M12). (3)
First-time asylum applicants
BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (29)
Missing status of minors – FR (2021M01-2022M12), CY (2021M01-2023M12), PL. (3)
Subsequent asylum applicants
BE, BG, CZ, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (28)
Not applicable – DK. Missing data – CY (2021M01-2023M12). Missing status of minors – FR (2021M01-2022M12), PL. (4)
Pending asylum applications
BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (29)
Missing status of minors – FR (2021M01-2022M12), CY (2021M01-2023M12), PL. (3)
Asylum applications withdrawn
BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PT, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (27)
Missing type of withdrawal – BE (2021M01-M10), IT (2021M01-M12), RO. Missing status of minors – CY (2021M01-2023M12), PL. (5)
Asylum applicants having had application processed under accelerated procedure
BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, EL, ES, HR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, NL, AT, PT, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (25)
Not applicable – IE (until 2022M10). Missing data – BE (until 2021M12), CY (until 2023M12), MT (until 2022M12), RO (until 2023M12). Missing status of minors – FR (2021M01-2022M12), PL. (7)
Applicants having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
BE, BG, CZ, DK, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, IT, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH (27)
Missing data – DE, HR (2021-2022), CY, RO, ME (2022). (5)
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minor
BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, IE, EL, ES, FR, HR, IT, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, NL, AT, PL, PT, RO, SI, SK, FI, SE, IS, LI, NO, CH, ME (32)
(0)
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The accuracy of statistical outputs in the general statistical sense is the degree of closeness of estimates to the true values.
The overall assessment of the accuracy of the data collection is considered to be high.
The asylum data are collected mainly through national administrative sources (registers in Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes).
Main sources of errors are:
differences in definitions by not recording a certain information, which may thus lead to over or under coverage of the target population, or
errors in the administrative register system (less often, mainly of technical nature).
EU aggregate is calculated as the sum of data from all Member States. It may be overestimated because of a certain risk that the same third-country national could apply for asylum in other Member States during the same reference period. While such risk is limited for high frequency monthly data, annual aggregates at the EU level (based on monthly statistics) can be possibly more affected by such double counting.
The following table describes the accuracy of data from 2021.
Datasets
Accuracy
Asylum applicants
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
First-time asylum applicants
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Subsequent asylum applicants
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Pending asylum applications
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Asylum applications withdrawn
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Asylum applicants having had application processed under accelerated procedure
DK (since 2021M01 definition differs), BE (2022M01 – 2022M11 definition differs), FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Applicants having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
IT (2021-2022 definition differs), CH (2021-2022 low reliability).
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minor
The annual statistics on unaccompanied minor asylum applicants and the annual statistics on asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors may differ because the age of the seekers may have been examined by national authorities and determined through an age assessment procedure.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Depending on the data periodicity, the data is provided to Eurostat by the reporting countries:
Monthly data: not later than 2 months after the end of the reference period.
Annual data: not later than 3 months after the end of the reference period.
Annual data on applicants having benefited from material reception conditions: not later than 6 months after the end of the reference period.
Generally, data are released by Eurostat on the public online database approximately 3 working days immediately after their reception (given that they do not contain any errors). In exceptional cases (large revisions, further validation, technical reasons, etc.) data may be disseminated later than 3 working days.
14.2. Punctuality
The punctuality of the data is overall good.
Majority of countries are able to meet the requirements of transmitting the data within the deadlines foreseen in the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007.
However, some countries may transmit the data with some days/weeks delay. The number of countries, which provide delayed data, can vary from period to period depending on causes for these delays.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The geographical comparability across countries may be affected by the fact that in some cases an applicant may submit a request in more than one country during the same reference period.
15.2. Comparability - over time
The comparability over time is affected by updates of requested statistics.
Period January 1985 – December 2007: data collected on the voluntary basis.
Period January 2014 – December 2020: data by Regulation (EC) No 862/2007, implementation of the new 2013 Asylum Guidelines.
Period from January 2021: data by Regulation (EC) No 862/2007, implementation of the new 2021 Asylum Guidelines.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Not applicable.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Internal consistency (between time, age, sex, country, citizenship) is ensured through various validation checks performed both by national data providers but also by Eurostat before data publication.
The types of statistics required under the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 are needed also for national purposes, such as for the management of the national system for processing asylum applications. In almost all cases, the data is based on existing administrative and statistical systems. The specific burdens placed by the Regulation on national authorities are therefore related to the need to prepare particular disaggregation or tables that might not otherwise have been produced, and to the need to apply the harmonised statistical definitions and concepts. For some national authorities, this resulted in one-off costs associated with the necessary adaptations to methods, procedures and systems.
The extent of the additional burdens varied between Member States according to the degree of similarity between the existing national systems for migration statistics and the requirements of the Regulation. However, in most Member States and for most of the statistics covered by the Regulation, the additional costs and burden are believed to be relatively limited and to be proportionate to the benefits obtained at both EU and national level of having more complete and better harmonised migration statistics.
According to this and following the Eurostat’s revision policy, revisions of asylum statistics are classified in three main types: routine, unscheduled error, and major revisions. As a general rule, the routine revisions shall be delivered with an annual frequency, error revisions can be delivered any time, while major revisions are to be sent with prior notification to Eurostat and are subject of Eurostat's approval.
For more information, please see also in the Eurostat dedicated section on Asylum.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The revision practice generally corresponds to the revision practice of the domain listed under sub‑concept 17.1 (data revision – policy) but can be subject to exceptions.
Reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated.
Whenever new data are provided and validated, the already disseminated data are updated.
Data are usually revised for the last year, four quarters or twelve months. Aggregates and components are revised at the same time. Annual aggregated data are recomputed from monthly or quarterly data.
For the routine revisions the monthly datasets shall be revised once a year(s) covering the period of the previous calendar year and shall be delivered during the period from beginning of January to the end of February of the following year. For the quarterly datasets the routine revisions shall be sent once a year covering the period of the previous calendar year(s); to be delivered during the period from beginning of January to the end of April of the following year. For the annual datasets the routine revisions shall be sent once a year covering the period of the previous calendar year(s) and shall be delivered during the period from beginning of May to the end of September of the following year.
However, in case of specific circumstances (e.g. high inflow of the asylum seekers in a given period, urgent policy or reporting needs), such routine revisions may de facto be accepted more frequently in order to ensure the highest accuracy of the published statistics. In this case these revisions will be published shortly after reception and validation by Eurostat.
Routine revisions are documented and monitored internally, while major revisions including exceptional revisions are communicated in the Metadata files available in dissemination.
Data may be published despite incomplete datasets, with some data missing or flagged as provisional for specific statistics. Such data are replaced with the final versions upon transmission and validation.
The impact of major revisions is analysed in working documents produced for expert meetings held with representatives of the national data providers.
18.1. Source data
Data are compiled from the administrative records of the national authorities, mainly the Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Data on asylum applicants are collected on monthly or annual basis.
Datasets
Data provided by countries
Data calculated by Eurostat
Asylum applicants
Monthly
Annually (sum of monthly data)
First-time asylum applicants
Monthly
Annually (sum of monthly data)
Subsequent asylum applicants
Monthly
Annually (sum of monthly data)
Pending asylum applications
Monthly
Not applicable
Asylum applications withdrawn
Monthly
Annually (sum of monthly data)
Asylum applicants having had application processed under accelerated procedure
Monthly
Annually (sum of monthly data)
Applicants having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
Annually
Not applicable
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minor
Annually
Not applicable
18.3. Data collection
This data collection is administered by Eurostat. The statistics are collected by the responsible data providers (Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes) and are supplied to Eurostat.
18.4. Data validation
Eurostat performs a set of standardized validation checks before publishing the data.
The transmission and the delivery of the datasets to Eurostat is managed by EDAMIS, the unique entry point. Statistical data must meet the Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) standard with the CSV data transmission format.
The validation service infrastructure is built on two components performing validation operations, first structural validation (STRUVAL) checking the structure and organisation of a dataset, and then content validation (CONVAL) checking the content of the statistical files based on a set predefined validation rule. The data provider always receives two validation reports from each data transmission.
Validation rules to ensure internal data consistency:
variable codes and values of data are from a predefined set of accepted code-lists and format;
statistics are confronted against other relevant data (e.g. a 'total' value of a given disaggregation (dimension) should equal the sum of the disaggregated data);
investigating inconsistencies in the statistics;
analysis of size and sign of revision;
verifying the statistics against expectations and domain intelligence;
outlier detection.
Automatically validated data in EDAMIS are forwarded to Eurostat's production system, where they are further validated by data managers using additional validation tools and then finally published on the website of Eurostat.
18.5. Data compilation
Based on the national detailed figures transmitted by the national data providers, Eurostat derives European aggregates and annual aggregations using a common calculation method.
The geographical aggregation is calculated by an arithmetic sum if there are no missing values between the components of the respective geographical aggregate. Otherwise, they are not calculated.
The annual aggregation is calculated by an arithmetical sum if there are no monthly values missing between the components of the respective annual total. Otherwise, they are not calculated.
18.6. Adjustment
Data are rounded to the nearest 5.
Due to the rounding, the sum of individual cells may not necessarily match the given total.
Application for international protection means request made by a third-country national or a stateless person for protection from a Member State, who can be understood to seek refugee status or subsidiary protection status, and who does not explicitly request another kind of protection, outside the scope of Directive 2011/95/EU, that can be applied for separately.
Concepts
Definitions
Asylum applicant
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period.
First-time asylum applicant
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period and applying for international protection for the first time.
Subsequent asylum applicant
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted a subsequent application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period.
Person subject of asylum application pending at the end of the month
Third-country national or stateless person who is a subject of application for international protection under consideration by the responsible national authority at the end of the month.
Asylum application withdrawn
Application for international protection having been withdrawn during the reference period, disaggregated by explicit and implicit withdrawal.
Asylum applicant having had application processed under accelerated procedure
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member during the reference period and having had their applications processed under the accelerated procedure.
Applicant having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
Third-country national or stateless person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such an application as a family member and having benefited from material reception conditions providing an adequate standard of living for applicants.
Status of minor
The status of minor (person below the age of 18) applicant or person subject to asylum decision can be either accompanied or unaccompanied by an adult responsible for the minor during the asylum application procedure.
Asylum applicant considered to be unaccompanied minor
An unaccompanied minor is a person aged less than 18 years who arrives on the territory of an EU Member State not accompanied by an adult responsible for the minor, or a minor who is left unaccompanied after having entered the territory of a Member State. The age of unaccompanied minors refers to the age accepted by the national authority, and, in some cases, the age determined by the age assessment procedure.
All data explicitly refer to the number of persons. The data on asylum applications withdrawn are related to the number of persons rather than cases.
Statistical population for data on asylum applications are third-country nationals, i.e. any person who is not a citizen of the European Union within the meaning of Article 17(1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons.
EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Montenegro.
Croatia from January 2012.
Montenegro from January 2018.
United Kingdom until November 2020.
Calendar month and calendar year.
The accuracy of statistical outputs in the general statistical sense is the degree of closeness of estimates to the true values.
The overall assessment of the accuracy of the data collection is considered to be high.
The asylum data are collected mainly through national administrative sources (registers in Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes).
Main sources of errors are:
differences in definitions by not recording a certain information, which may thus lead to over or under coverage of the target population, or
errors in the administrative register system (less often, mainly of technical nature).
EU aggregate is calculated as the sum of data from all Member States. It may be overestimated because of a certain risk that the same third-country national could apply for asylum in other Member States during the same reference period. While such risk is limited for high frequency monthly data, annual aggregates at the EU level (based on monthly statistics) can be possibly more affected by such double counting.
The following table describes the accuracy of data from 2021.
Datasets
Accuracy
Asylum applicants
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
First-time asylum applicants
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Subsequent asylum applicants
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Pending asylum applications
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Asylum applications withdrawn
FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Asylum applicants having had application processed under accelerated procedure
DK (since 2021M01 definition differs), BE (2022M01 – 2022M11 definition differs), FR (since 2023M01 estimated data for unaccompanied minors).
Applicants having benefited from material reception conditions at the end of the reference year
IT (2021-2022 definition differs), CH (2021-2022 low reliability).
Asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minor
The annual statistics on unaccompanied minor asylum applicants and the annual statistics on asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors may differ because the age of the seekers may have been examined by national authorities and determined through an age assessment procedure.
Number of persons.
Based on the national detailed figures transmitted by the national data providers, Eurostat derives European aggregates and annual aggregations using a common calculation method.
The geographical aggregation is calculated by an arithmetic sum if there are no missing values between the components of the respective geographical aggregate. Otherwise, they are not calculated.
The annual aggregation is calculated by an arithmetical sum if there are no monthly values missing between the components of the respective annual total. Otherwise, they are not calculated.
Data are compiled from the administrative records of the national authorities, mainly the Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes.
Data is disseminated continuously.
Depending on the data periodicity, the data is provided to Eurostat by the reporting countries:
Monthly data: not later than 2 months after the end of the reference period.
Annual data: not later than 3 months after the end of the reference period.
Annual data on applicants having benefited from material reception conditions: not later than 6 months after the end of the reference period.
Generally, data are released by Eurostat on the public online database approximately 3 working days immediately after their reception (given that they do not contain any errors). In exceptional cases (large revisions, further validation, technical reasons, etc.) data may be disseminated later than 3 working days.
The geographical comparability across countries may be affected by the fact that in some cases an applicant may submit a request in more than one country during the same reference period.
The comparability over time is affected by updates of requested statistics.
Period January 1985 – December 2007: data collected on the voluntary basis.
