Asylum Report 2026 - Executive summary

EU+ countries worked on transposing the 2024 Reception Conditions Directive (RCD) into national law by the 12 June 2026 deadline, in addition to adapting to other regulations with an impact on reception, such as the Aylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR) and the APR. Guided by their national implementation plans, EU+ countries adjusted reception conditions and addressed gaps in reception capacity, including for applicants in the border procedure. Accordingly, many countries needed to establish centres for screening and accommodation facilities for applicants undergoing the border procedure. Operational needs spurred changes to case management and IT systems too. The first iteration of the Annual Migration Management Cycle contributed to higher-quality data on reception systems across EU+ countries.

The decrease in asylum applications led to reduced strain on reception systems in several countries, which proceeded to downsize their reception capacity. In contrast, some countries where reception systems remained under pressure maintained or increased their capacity. In a landmark case concerning reception capacity, the CJEU ruled that a Member State cannot invoke an unforeseeable and unavoidable influx of applicants to evade its obligations under EU law to meet the basic needs of asylum seekers, highlighting the need for buffer capacity to absorb potential inflows of applicants.

EU+ countries have long been faced with the impact of secondary movements. Several of them continued or launched new initiatives to address this occurrence, for example by making changes to reception conditions, in line with RCD (2024), Article 21 and AMMR, Article 18. These provisions stipulate that applicants who have been notified of a transfer decision to the Member State responsible are no longer entitled to reception conditions, while retaining the right to a standard of living in accordance with EU law.