3.5. Relative pressure related to asylum in EU+ countries
This section analyses the pressure exerted on national authorities by using three categories: asylum applications per capita, positive decisions at first instance per capita (i.e. the number of beneficiaries) and negative decisions at first instance per capita (i.e. the number of rejected asylum seekers). To account for differences in the size of countries, the indicators are weighted by population size (per 1 million inhabitants). Displaced persons seeking or receiving temporary protection are excluded from the calculations.
When considering asylum applications in relation to population size (see Figure 4, outer circle), on average about 1,800 applications per 1 million inhabitants were lodged across EU+ countries in 2025. Greece and Cyprus had the most asylum applicants per 1 million inhabitants (5,900 and 4,500, respectively). They were followed at a distance by Spain, Belgium and Switzerland (approximately 2,900 each). Even though most EU+ countries had fewer applications per population size than in the previous year, Latvia (790) stood out as it received considerably more applications per capita compared to 2024.
As seen previously, EU+ countries issued more negative first instance decisions per capita (1,300 decisions per 1 million inhabitants) than positive ones (540) in 2025. Greece faced the most pressure per capita from beneficiaries of international protection (i.e. people who were granted refugee status or subsidiary protection at first instance), followed at some distance by Switzerland and Austria (see Figure 4, middle circle). At the same time, Cyprus faced the highest pressure from the burden of rejected asylum applications per capita (i.e. those who received negative decisions or national forms of protection at first instance) (see Figure 4, inner circle).
Figure 4. Number of asylum applications lodged and number of positive and negative first instance decisions issued per capita by EU+ country, 2025
