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How many asylum decisions were positive?

In each European country, what share of first-instance asylum decisions granted protection?

26 of 26 shown in the list

% of first-instance decisions that were positive

  1. Estonia93.2% 2025
  2. Lithuania72.5% 2023
  3. Ireland63.4% 2025
  4. Austria61.2% 2025
  5. Greece58.5% 2025
  6. Switzerland53.3% 2025
  7. Romania52.5% 2025
  8. Luxembourg51.3% 2025
  9. Spain51.1% 2025
  10. Finland50.2% 2025
  11. Poland48.4% 2025
  12. Netherlands47.7% 2025
  13. France40.0% 2025
  14. Malta40.0% 2025
  15. Denmark35.1% 2025
  16. Portugal33.5% 2025
  17. Germany32.0% 2025
  18. Norway30.1% 2025
  19. Italy30.0% 2025
  20. Latvia29.8% 2025
  21. Belgium29.7% 2025
  22. Sweden25.3% 2025
  23. Bulgaria20.5% 2025
  24. Czechia20.4% 2025
  25. Iceland12.3% 2024

Source: Eurostat, First instance decisions on applications by type of decision (migr_asydcfsta). Data for 2023 to 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 26 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Estonia at 93.2% (2025) and the lowest is Cyprus at 7.9% (2025).
  • The middle value (the median) is 40.0%.

What it counts

Positive first-instance decisions (refugee status, subsidiary protection or humanitarian status) divided by all first-instance decisions, in the latest year reported with at least 500 decisions.

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

The rate depends heavily on which nationalities apply in each country, on the point of the conflict or crisis at the time and on whether a country grants other forms of protection, so it is not a measure of how generous a country is. It does not count appeals, and the number of decisions is not shown on the chart.

Source

Eurostat: First instance decisions on applications by type of decision (migr_asydcfsta). Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). How many asylum decisions were positive? [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/asylum-recognition-rate. Data: Eurostat, First instance decisions on applications by type of decision (migr_asydcfsta), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_asydcfsta/default/table (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/asylum-recognition-rate). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{asylumrecognitionrate2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {How many asylum decisions were positive?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/asylum-recognition-rate},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, First instance decisions on applications by type of decision (migr_asydcfsta), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_asydcfsta/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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