{"id":450432,"date":"2026-04-15T14:31:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/04\/15\/asilo-ue-a-gennaio-le-prime-domande-calano-del-23-per-cento-il-venezuela-guida-i-flussi-ma-pesano-122-milioni-di-arretrati\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:26:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T13:26:44","slug":"eu-january-asylum-applications-down-23-percent-as-venezuela-leads-flows-1-22-million%e2%80%91case-backlog-weighs-on-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/04\/15\/eu-january-asylum-applications-down-23-percent-as-venezuela-leads-flows-1-22-million%e2%80%91case-backlog-weighs-on-system\/","title":{"rendered":"EU January asylum applications down 23 percent as Venezuela leads flows; 1.22 million\u2011case backlog weighs on system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 In January 2026, 51,160 non-European citizens applied for international protection for the first time<\/strong> in an EU country. This figure, reported in Eurostat\u2019s monthly bulletin on asylum data<\/a> across the EU, represents a 23 percent decrease<\/strong> compared to the 66,745 applications recorded in January 2025<\/strong> and a 7 percent increase from the previous month (December 2025)<\/strong>. In addition to the 51,000 applications, there were a further 9,500 subsequent applications<\/strong> from applicants who re-submitted an application after a final decision: an increase of 9 percent from the previous year. <\/p>\n

Venezuelans and Afghans top the list. Venezuela, <\/strong>which in 2025 was the second-most common country of origin for asylum seekers<\/a>, remains the main country of origin, with 7,300 applications<\/strong> submitted for the first time in January alone. They are followed by Afghanistan<\/strong> (4,790), Bangladesh<\/strong> (2,940), and Egypt<\/strong> (2,280). The trend for Venezuelan nationals was already evident in the final quarter of 2025, when they accounted for around 13.9 percent of all applicants in the EU.<\/a> The distribution of asylum seekers within the Union remains highly localized. Also in January 2026, Spain (10,860), Italy (10,660), France (9,290), and Germany (7,645)<\/strong> combined accounted for 75 percent of all first asylum applications<\/strong> in the EU, just as they had received 80 percent of applications throughout 2025.<\/p>\n

 However, looking at the number of applications relative to the resident population, the ranking changes: Greece<\/strong> recorded the highest rate, with 46.7 applicants per 100,000 inhabitants<\/strong>, followed by Spain (22.1) and Ireland (20.1). <\/p>\n

One particularly sensitive figure concerns unaccompanied minors<\/strong>. In January 2026, 1,220 minors<\/strong> sought protection in the EU without adult support. Most of them came from Egypt (270)<\/strong>, Somalia (175), Venezuela (155)<\/strong>, Afghanistan (140), and Sudan (70); while the five countries receiving the highest number of applications were Greece (375), Germany (200), Spain (170), the Netherlands (135), and France (110). <\/p>\n

The January figures come against a backdrop of a gradual decline from the peaks of 2023<\/a>: the report outlines trends in asylum applications in the European Union between January 2022 and January 2026, distinguishing between first-time applicants and those submitting subsequent applications. Regarding first-time applicants, towards the end of 2023,<\/strong> there was a peak<\/strong> at 114,805 applications in October<\/a>; subsequently, during 2024 and 2025, the number of first-time applications showed a general downward trend<\/strong>, albeit with seasonal fluctuations, stabilizing at significantly lower levels than the 2023 records. As for the trend in subsequent applications<\/strong>, this remained essentially stable and low<\/strong> (below 10,000 per month) for almost the entire 2022\u20132024 period. Eurostat, however, reports an increase in the second half of 2025<\/strong>, with a peak of 16,440 applications in September, before falling back to around 11,000 in December 2025. <\/p>\n

Despite the slowdown in new arrivals, the European asylum system remains under pressure due to the huge backlog of cases still to be processed: at the end of December 2025, there were approximately 1.22 million applications awaiting a final decision<\/strong> in the EU, a decrease of 0.5 percent from November 2025 and 2.2 percent from December 2024. Italy<\/strong> has the third-highest number of pending cases (over 234,000, 19.2 percent of the total), surpassed only by Germany (almost 307,000, 25.1 percent) and Spain (almost 249,000, 20.4 percent).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Data from the Statistical Office of the European Union. Spain, Italy, France, and Germany account for 75 percent of all applications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7901,"featured_media":259301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29788,25712],"tags":[26952,33776,27572,33394],"class_list":["post-450432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diritti-en","category-general-news","tag-requests-dasilo-en","tag-gennaio-2026","tag-migrations-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450433,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450432\/revisions\/450433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}