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Law in Charts · Migration and asylum

Unaccompanied minors among asylum applicants

What share of asylum applicants are children who arrived without a parent or guardian, in each European country?

32 of 32 shown in the list

% of asylum applicants who are unaccompanied minors

  1. Bulgaria14.8% 2025
  2. Netherlands13.6% 2025
  3. Latvia11.5% 2025
  4. Switzerland10.7% 2025
  5. Lithuania7.9% 2025
  6. Norway7.8% 2025
  7. Finland6.1% 2025
  8. Greece4.8% 2025
  9. Cyprus4.6% 2025
  10. Denmark4.4% 2025
  11. Hungary4.3% 2025
  12. Slovenia4.0% 2025
  13. Austria3.4% 2025
  14. Portugal3.4% 2025
  15. Slovakia3.0% 2025
  16. Germany2.9% 2025
  17. Belgium2.7% 2025
  18. Romania2.5% 2025
  19. Poland2.2% 2025
  20. Malta1.8% 2025
  21. Ireland1.7% 2025
  22. Sweden1.7% 2025
  23. Iceland0.9% 2025
  24. Croatia0.8% 2025
  25. Luxembourg0.8% 2025

Source: Eurostat, Unaccompanied minors asylum applicants (migr_asyunaa) and asylum applicants (migr_asyappctza). Data for 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 32 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Bulgaria at 14.8% (2025) and the lowest is Czechia at 0.0% (2025).
  • The middle value (the median) is 2.8%.

What it counts

Applicants recorded as unaccompanied minors divided by all asylum applicants of the year (first-time and subsequent), in the latest year each country reports (since 2021).

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

Countries assess age and the lack of a guardian in different ways, and the numbers of children are small in many countries, so the share can swing from year to year. Children who go missing before they apply are not counted.

Source

Eurostat: Unaccompanied minors asylum applicants (migr_asyunaa) and asylum applicants (migr_asyappctza). 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). Unaccompanied minors among asylum applicants [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/unaccompanied-minors-among-applicants. Data: Eurostat, Unaccompanied minors asylum applicants (migr_asyunaa) and asylum applicants (migr_asyappctza), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_asyunaa/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/unaccompanied-minors-among-applicants). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{unaccompaniedminorsamongapplicants2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {Unaccompanied minors among asylum applicants},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/unaccompanied-minors-among-applicants},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, Unaccompanied minors asylum applicants (migr_asyunaa) and asylum applicants (migr_asyappctza), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/migr_asyunaa/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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