Germany loses top spot for EU country with the most asylum requests

Germany is no longer the country where the most people apply for asylum in the European Union, fresh data released by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) on Monday shows.

By the end of June 2025, France (78,000) and Spain (77,000) both received more applications than Germany (70,000), which has been the main destination for asylum seekers in recent years.

By the end of June 2025, EU countries plus Norway and Switzerland received 399,000 asylum applications, a 23% decrease compared to the first half of 2024. 

There was a significant dip in applications lodged by Syrian citizens, with 25,000 fewer than the first six months of the previous year, due to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria last December.

Applications in Germany, Italy, and Spain fell compared to the first half of 2024, respectively by 43%, 25 % and 13% while they were more or less stable in France, which is now the EU country with most asylum requests. Together, these four destination countries accounted for nearly three-quarters of all applications lodged in the entire EU.

Venezuela is now the main country of origin of asylum seekers

Venezuelans applied for asylum in significant numbers in 2025: around 49,000 requests, up by almost a third year-over-year.

They became the largest nationality group in the first half of 2025, after a decade during which Syrians were consistently the main third country nationals seeking protection in the EU, according to EUAA data.

This huge increase is likely related to stricter immigration policy in the United States, another traditional destination for the Venezuelan diaspora, Martin Wagner, an asylum expert at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) told Euronews.

“You could say there seems to be a causal relationship: as the US has become more restrictive on migration in general, people have increasingly looked for other places to move.”

Since Donald Trump re-took the office as US President, he started a crackdown against Venezuelan migrants coming to the US, and its administration has recently announced that it is ending temporary protections for more than 250,000 Venezuelan citizens.

By contrast, Venezuelans can land in Europe without a visa and stay for a maximum of 90 days in the Schengen area countries, with their passports alone.

They tend then to apply for the visa - or for international protection - once they are already on EU soil, said the expert.

“Venezuelans have been coming to Europe for quite some time, but the majority actually remain within the region. This is typical in cases of large-scale displacement: most people stay nearby, though some eventually move further on. The reasons for moving onward vary. Often it’s due to networks of friends, family, or communities they already know in another country, which makes the transition easier.”

Even if the recognition rate of international protection for Venezuelans is lower than 20% in the EU, many countries can also offer national statuses to Venezuelans,  Martin Wagner said. 

Spain offers most of this national form of protection, and is where Venezuelans mostly go: 93% of their applications were headed to Spain, also due to a shared language and an existing diaspora in the country.