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
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
29 March 2023
2.2. Metadata last posted
29 March 2023
2.3. Metadata last update
21 February 2024
3.1. Data description
Dublin statistics contain information based on Article 4.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 on Migration and international protection as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 with reference to:
number of requests (and re-examination of requests) for taking back or taking charge of an asylum seeker;
provisions on which the requests (and re-examination of requests) for taking back or taking charge are based;
decisions taken in response to the requests (and re-examination of requests) for taking back or taking charge;
number of unilateral decisions taken by Member States to examine the application of an asylum seeker;
numbers of transfers to which the decisions, (taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge), lead;
number of requests for information and responses to such requests.
The Regulation (EU) 2020/851 requires additional data disaggregation by sex and by applicant type: accompanied and unaccompanied minors.
Data are provided to Eurostat by national authorities such as Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes.
3.2. Classification system
ISO 3166 is the International Standard for country codes and codes for their subdivisions. The classification of Dublin data for reporting (GEO) and partner countries (PARTNER) is based on ISO-3166 (using alpha-2) with minor changes.
For any non-international concepts/breakdowns, classifications are based on Eurostat standards, e.g.:
type of request (REQUEST)
legal provisions of requests/decisions under 'Dublin' Regulation (LEG_PROV)
duration of transfer (DURATION)
type of decision on requests (DECISION)
type of applicant (APPLICANT)
3.3. Coverage - sector
Migration and international protection - Dublin statistics
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Member States shall examine the application of any third country national who applies for asylum at the border or in their territory. Chapter III of the Regulation (EC) 604/2013 (“Dublin” Regulation) lists the criteria for determining the single Member State responsible for the examination of the application. Under certain circumstances, a Member State may examine the application for asylum, even though not under its responsibility according to the criteria, and hence become responsible for the examination. Member State previously responsible shall be informed by the Member State taking charge or taking back the applicant or by the Member State conducting the procedure for determining responsibility.
Incoming requests: any incoming request (requests to take back/to take charge of an asylum applicant or request for information, etc.) addressed by the Member States (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo).
Outgoing requests: any outgoing request (requests to take back/to take charge of an asylum applicant or request for information, etc.) addressed by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner).
Total number of requests: Total number of requests to take back and to take charge of an asylum applicant.
Total number of taking charge requests. The number of taking charge requests is split into 14 categories based on the Dublin regulation:
Family reasons (Art. 8, Art. 9, Art. 10, Art. 11), Documentation and entry reasons (Art. 12.1, Art. 12.2, Art. 12.3, Art 12.4, Art. 14), Humanitarian reasons (Art. 17.2), Dependent persons (Art. 16), Irregular entry – Irregular stay (Art. 13.1, Art. 13.2), Application in an international transit area of an airport (Art. 15).
Total number of taking back requests. The number of taking back requests is split into four categories based on the Dublin regulation:
Withdrawal of application during Dublin procedure (Art. 20.5), Under examination - no permission to stay (Art. 18.1.b), Withdrawal - new application (Art. 18.1.c), Rejection - no permission to stay (Art. 18.1.d).
Total EURODAC: Total number of requests based on Eurodac hits.
Incoming requests based on a Eurodac hit are incoming requests addressed by the Members States (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo) to take charge or take back an applicant.
Outgoing requests based on a Eurodac hit are outgoing requests addressed by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner) to take charge or take back an applicant.
Total number of pending requests:
- number of pending incoming requests to take charge or take back addressed by all other Member States (to reporting Member State (Geo)) and to which response (decision) is pending at the end of the reference period.
- number of pending outgoing requests to take charge and take back addressed to all other Member States (by reporting Member State (Geo)) and to which response (decision) is pending at the end of the reference period.
Total number of requests for information:
- number of requests for information (incoming): number of request for information submitted by the Member States (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo)
- number of requests for information (outgoing): number of request for information submitted by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner).
The Total number of requests for information is split into three categories based on the Dublin regulation:
information on the general criteria (Art. 34) of the regulation, information on Family of unaccompanied minors (Art. 6.5 and Art. 8.6), information on Family of dependents (Art. 16.4).
Total number of answers to requests for information:
- number of answers provided by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the (incoming) requests for information submitted by the Member States (Partner)
- number of answers received by the reporting Member State (Geo) from the other Member States (Partner) to the request for information that the reporting Member State (Geo) submitted to these Member States (Partner).
Total number of re-examination requests: number of subsequent requests to take back/to take charge of an application following the negative reply on the original request to the same Member State.
Unilateral decisions: A Member State may decide according to the sovereignty/discretionary clause (Art. 17.1) or unilaterally (Art. 3.2 Responsibility by default) to take responsibility of an asylum application. This information reported by the countries refers only to decisions, no requests were sent.
Total number of Decisions on requests:
- number of decisions on incoming requests: decisions issued by the reporting Member State (Geo) on incoming requests addressed by other Member States (Partner)
- number of decisions on outgoing requests: decisions issued by other Member States (Partner) on outgoing requests addressed by the reporting Member State (Geo).
Total number of Transfer requests:
- number of incoming requests transferred: transfer requests (taking charge/taking back) which have been effectively carried out by a Member State (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo)
- number of outgoing requests transferred: transfer requests (taking charge/taking back) which have been effectively carried out by the reporting Member State (Geo) to another Member State.
Commission services recommend that Article 4.4 be interpreted as referring to the number of persons concerned by the request, decision and transfer in order to be comparable with other asylum statistics collected by Eurostat. However, as the Article 4.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 refers to statistics based on the number of requests, figures may refer to the number of requests instead of the number of persons.
3.6. Statistical population
Dublin statistics refer to third country nationals applying for asylum in one of the Member States and having the application examined and processed according to the Dublin Regulation criteria (Regulation (EU) 604/2013). A third country national is "any person who is not a citizen of the Union within the meaning of Article 17(1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons". Please see point 3.4 “Statistical concepts and definitions”.
3.7. Reference area
EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. United Kingdom until 2020.
Data disaggregated by sex and by applicant type: accompanied and unaccompanied minors are available from 2021 onwards.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number (number of requests, number of decisions, number of transfers, etc.).
2022 Calendar year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The compilation of Dublin statistics is based on Article 4.4 of Regulation (EC) 862/2007 of 11 July 2007 and its amending Regulation (EU) 2020/851 of 18 June 2020. The legal acts detail the data provisions Member States are obliged to supply to Eurostat.
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)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), 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.
Member States have the responsibility of providing “Dublin” statistics to Eurostat in accordance with the Article 4.4. of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851. Eurostat provides Technical Guidelines to the countries describing the procedures and the quality requirements for the statistics collected (see Annexes).
10.7. Quality management - documentation
See Annexes.
11.1. Quality assurance
As stated in the Article 9 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007, Member States must report to Eurostat 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 compile the requested data following the guidelines and instructions provided by Eurostat. Before data publication, consistency validation checks are performed by Eurostat.
Furthermore, in order to ensure that the statistical practices used to compile the Dublin data are in compliance with the methodological requirements and that good practices in the field of Dublin and Asylum statistics are being followed, every two years Eurostat organises a Working Group on Dublin statistics where quality and methodological issues are discussed with the data providers (Member States). Eurostat also undertakes compliance monitoring visits to Member States, during which it reviews and consults the data providers on methodological issues.
Eurostat plans to administer a quality survey (questionnaire) to assess the compliance of the Dublin definitions and concepts.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Dublin statistics are based on administrative sources. Some differences in definitions and practices for producing statistics exist among countries. However, the Member States generally follow the requirements of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 and the quality of the data can be assessed as good.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Users of Eurostat Dublin (and Asylum) statistics are:
various policy DGs in the European Commission, such as DG Migration and Home Affairs and the European Union Asylum Agency for designing, funding and implementing asylum related policies in EU;
European Parliament;
national authorities (Ministries of Interior, Ministries of Justice, Migration agencies) that use Dublin and Asylum data to monitor or plan the development of their national asylum procedures;
European Migration Network (EMN) that uses the data as a basis for its annual EU and national-level 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 does not conduct user satisfaction surveys. Users’ satisfaction is monitored on a constant basis through informal and formal contact and communication (e.g. requests and comments received by users).
12.3. Completeness
For some Member States, fully disaggregated data may not be available.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The accuracy of the Dublin statistics can be assessed as good. Data are collected mainly through national administrative sources (Ministries of the Interior, Immigration Agencies, National Statistical Institutes) and new developments in administrative systems have had a positive impact on the accuracy of the statistical output.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Data are collected on annual basis (calendar year) and must be transmitted by reporting countries no later than three months after the end of the reference period.
Data are disseminated by Eurostat approximately two weeks after reception (provided that data are error-free).
14.2. Punctuality
The punctuality of the data is overall good.
The majority of countries is able to meet the requirements of data transmission within the deadlines foreseen in the Regulation (EC) 862/2007. However, a few countries may transmit data with a delay of days/weeks after the legal deadline.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
In accordance with the guidelines, Dublin statistics should refer to persons.
However, due to technical reasons and data availability, some Member States may supply statistics relating to the number of requests.
15.2. Comparability - over time
Comparability over time of Dublin statistics may be affected by updates of the requested statistics.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Asylum statistics collected under Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 are based on persons, while Dublin statistics may refer to requests in a few cases.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Not applicable.
Not available.
17.1. Data revision - policy
The general Eurostat revision policy applies to this domain. According to the policy for routine revisions, national data continue to be revised when additional information from national authorities becomes available. If errors are detected in either national data or in European aggregates, they are corrected immediately. Major revisions and changes in methodology which may lead to breaks in time series shall be announced in advance by the national data providers and approved by Eurostat.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The revision practice aligns effectively with the one outlined in sub-concept 17.1 (data revision - policy). Reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated. Whenever new country data are validated, the already disseminated data are updated. Revisions of aggregates are made directly after revisions of country data transmitted to Eurostat. Time series breaks caused by major revisions are flagged. Major revisions are documented and communicated to users in a methodological note. 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 experts meetings held with representatives of the national data providers.
18.1. Source data
National administrative data sources.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Annual.
18.3. Data collection
Data are compiled from administrative records of national authorities such as Ministries of the Interior, National Statistical Institutes or related immigration agencies and are transmitted to Eurostat by the countries.
18.4. Data validation
Before being disseminated through the Eurostat online databases, internal consistency of the data files is ensured.
Dublin statistics contain information based on Article 4.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 on Migration and international protection as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851 with reference to:
number of requests (and re-examination of requests) for taking back or taking charge of an asylum seeker;
provisions on which the requests (and re-examination of requests) for taking back or taking charge are based;
decisions taken in response to the requests (and re-examination of requests) for taking back or taking charge;
number of unilateral decisions taken by Member States to examine the application of an asylum seeker;
numbers of transfers to which the decisions, (taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge), lead;
number of requests for information and responses to such requests.
The Regulation (EU) 2020/851 requires additional data disaggregation by sex and by applicant type: accompanied and unaccompanied minors.
Data are provided to Eurostat by national authorities such as Ministries of the Interior, related immigration agencies and National Statistical Institutes.
21 February 2024
Member States shall examine the application of any third country national who applies for asylum at the border or in their territory. Chapter III of the Regulation (EC) 604/2013 (“Dublin” Regulation) lists the criteria for determining the single Member State responsible for the examination of the application. Under certain circumstances, a Member State may examine the application for asylum, even though not under its responsibility according to the criteria, and hence become responsible for the examination. Member State previously responsible shall be informed by the Member State taking charge or taking back the applicant or by the Member State conducting the procedure for determining responsibility.
Incoming requests: any incoming request (requests to take back/to take charge of an asylum applicant or request for information, etc.) addressed by the Member States (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo).
Outgoing requests: any outgoing request (requests to take back/to take charge of an asylum applicant or request for information, etc.) addressed by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner).
Total number of requests: Total number of requests to take back and to take charge of an asylum applicant.
Total number of taking charge requests. The number of taking charge requests is split into 14 categories based on the Dublin regulation:
Family reasons (Art. 8, Art. 9, Art. 10, Art. 11), Documentation and entry reasons (Art. 12.1, Art. 12.2, Art. 12.3, Art 12.4, Art. 14), Humanitarian reasons (Art. 17.2), Dependent persons (Art. 16), Irregular entry – Irregular stay (Art. 13.1, Art. 13.2), Application in an international transit area of an airport (Art. 15).
Total number of taking back requests. The number of taking back requests is split into four categories based on the Dublin regulation:
Withdrawal of application during Dublin procedure (Art. 20.5), Under examination - no permission to stay (Art. 18.1.b), Withdrawal - new application (Art. 18.1.c), Rejection - no permission to stay (Art. 18.1.d).
Total EURODAC: Total number of requests based on Eurodac hits.
Incoming requests based on a Eurodac hit are incoming requests addressed by the Members States (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo) to take charge or take back an applicant.
Outgoing requests based on a Eurodac hit are outgoing requests addressed by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner) to take charge or take back an applicant.
Total number of pending requests:
- number of pending incoming requests to take charge or take back addressed by all other Member States (to reporting Member State (Geo)) and to which response (decision) is pending at the end of the reference period.
- number of pending outgoing requests to take charge and take back addressed to all other Member States (by reporting Member State (Geo)) and to which response (decision) is pending at the end of the reference period.
Total number of requests for information:
- number of requests for information (incoming): number of request for information submitted by the Member States (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo)
- number of requests for information (outgoing): number of request for information submitted by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner).
The Total number of requests for information is split into three categories based on the Dublin regulation:
information on the general criteria (Art. 34) of the regulation, information on Family of unaccompanied minors (Art. 6.5 and Art. 8.6), information on Family of dependents (Art. 16.4).
Total number of answers to requests for information:
- number of answers provided by the reporting Member State (Geo) to the (incoming) requests for information submitted by the Member States (Partner)
- number of answers received by the reporting Member State (Geo) from the other Member States (Partner) to the request for information that the reporting Member State (Geo) submitted to these Member States (Partner).
Total number of re-examination requests: number of subsequent requests to take back/to take charge of an application following the negative reply on the original request to the same Member State.
Unilateral decisions: A Member State may decide according to the sovereignty/discretionary clause (Art. 17.1) or unilaterally (Art. 3.2 Responsibility by default) to take responsibility of an asylum application. This information reported by the countries refers only to decisions, no requests were sent.
Total number of Decisions on requests:
- number of decisions on incoming requests: decisions issued by the reporting Member State (Geo) on incoming requests addressed by other Member States (Partner)
- number of decisions on outgoing requests: decisions issued by other Member States (Partner) on outgoing requests addressed by the reporting Member State (Geo).
Total number of Transfer requests:
- number of incoming requests transferred: transfer requests (taking charge/taking back) which have been effectively carried out by a Member State (Partner) to the reporting Member State (Geo)
- number of outgoing requests transferred: transfer requests (taking charge/taking back) which have been effectively carried out by the reporting Member State (Geo) to another Member State.
Commission services recommend that Article 4.4 be interpreted as referring to the number of persons concerned by the request, decision and transfer in order to be comparable with other asylum statistics collected by Eurostat. However, as the Article 4.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 refers to statistics based on the number of requests, figures may refer to the number of requests instead of the number of persons.
Dublin statistics refer to third country nationals applying for asylum in one of the Member States and having the application examined and processed according to the Dublin Regulation criteria (Regulation (EU) 604/2013). A third country national is "any person who is not a citizen of the Union within the meaning of Article 17(1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons". Please see point 3.4 “Statistical concepts and definitions”.
EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. United Kingdom until 2020.
2022 Calendar year.
The accuracy of the Dublin statistics can be assessed as good. Data are collected mainly through national administrative sources (Ministries of the Interior, Immigration Agencies, National Statistical Institutes) and new developments in administrative systems have had a positive impact on the accuracy of the statistical output.
Number (number of requests, number of decisions, number of transfers, etc.).
Not applicable.
National administrative data sources.
Although data periodicity is annual, data are updated on a continuous basis following any new incoming data transmission (first or revised data).
Data are collected on annual basis (calendar year) and must be transmitted by reporting countries no later than three months after the end of the reference period.
Data are disseminated by Eurostat approximately two weeks after reception (provided that data are error-free).
In accordance with the guidelines, Dublin statistics should refer to persons.
However, due to technical reasons and data availability, some Member States may supply statistics relating to the number of requests.
Comparability over time of Dublin statistics may be affected by updates of the requested statistics.
