A record 1.3 million migrants applied for asylum in the 28 member states of the European Union, Norway and Switzerland in 2015 – nearly double the previous high water mark of roughly 700,000 that was set in 1992 after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency.

Today, Eastern European countries like Kosovo and Albania still contribute to the overall flow of asylum seekers into the EU, Norway and Switzerland, but about half of refugees in 2015 trace their origins to just three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Conflicts, both fresh and long-standing, in each of these states have led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. Some have been displaced within their homelands; others have sought refuge in neighboring countries; and still others have made the often perilous journey to Europe (and elsewhere) to seek asylum.

Since 2012, Germany has been the primary destination country for asylum seekers in Europe, receiving 442,000 asylum applications in 2015 alone. Following Germany, Hungary (174,000 applications) and Sweden (156,000) received the highest number of asylum applications in 2015. Meanwhile, France (71,000) and the UK (39,000) received roughly the same number of applications in 2015 as in years just prior to the refugee surge in 2015.

Refugees did not disperse equally across Europe, with some countries taking in more asylum seekers than the European average. In 2015, the EU-28, Norway and Switzerland as a whole had 250 asylum applicants per 100,000 residents. By comparison, Hungary had 1,770 applicants per 100,000 people (the highest of any country) and Sweden had 1,600 applicants per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, Germany had 540 applicants per 100,000 people, still well above the total European rate. By contrast, France had only 110 applicants per 100,000 people in its total population in 2015 and the UK had only 60 asylum seekers per 100,000 people.

The 2015 surge marked the largest annual flow of asylum seekers to Europe since 1985. By comparison, the second largest came in 1992, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when 697,000 applied for asylum to the nations that make up current EU countries, Norway and Switzerland. ¹ Europe again experienced an uptick in asylum applications during conflicts in Kosovo in the late 1990s, with asylum applications peaking at 463,000 in 2002. However, 2015’s surge stands out not only as a record year for asylum applications, but for the fact that it had more applicants than the previous peak years of 1992 and 2002 combined. Since 1985, Europe received about 11.6 million asylum applications – meaning that last year’s 1.3 million amounted to about one-tenth of all applications received during the past 30 years by current EU countries, Norway and Switzerland.

Earlier this year, the EU and Turkey reached an agreement that has largely halted the flow of migrants from points east through Turkey, on to Greece and eventually to other parts of the EU. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 8,000 migrants arrived in Greece between April and July 2016 after the agreement with Turkey was put into full effect. Before the agreement, about 150,000 migrants had arrived in Greece between January and March 2016.

At the same time, some of the movement toward Europe is shifting to a southern Mediterranean route to Italy, with flows of largely sub-Saharan African migrants (not Syrians, Afghans or Iraqis) on the rise. Italy has received about 90,000 migrants on its shores since the start of 2016, roughly similar to the first half of 2015. The UNHCR also estimates that over 2,500 people have lost their lives in the Mediterranean between January and May of 2016.

Europeans disapprove of how the EU has handled the refugee issue

European publics have been far from satisfied with how the EU has handled the historic number of refugees arriving there. A spring 2016 Pew Research Center survey conducted across 10 EU member states following the EU-Turkey agreement found that majorities in each country disapproved of how the EU was dealing with the refugee issue.

Disapproval was generally greatest in countries with the highest number of asylum seekers in 2015. For example, 94% of Greeks and 88% of Swedes said they disapprove of how the EU has handled the refugee issue. Sweden received the third highest number of asylum applications in 2015. And while Greece was not the final destination for most refugees in 2015, it was their main point of entry, with about 850,000 arrivals in 2015 alone.

Even in countries with a lower number of asylees, disapproval of the EU’s handling of the refugee issue was widespread, including in France (70%), the UK (70%) and the Netherlands (63%). And in Germany, which had the most asylum applications in 2015, fully two-thirds faulted the EU’s approach to the refugee crisis.

At the same time, half or more in eight of the 10 EU countries Pew Research Center surveyed this spring believe that incoming refugees increase the likelihood of terrorism in their country. Many Europeans are also worried that refugees will be an economic burden, with half or more in five nations saying that refugees will take jobs and social benefits.

NOTE (April 2017): After publication, the weight for the Netherlands public opinion data was revised to correct percentages for two regions. The impact of this revision on the Netherlands public opinion data included in this report is very minor and does not materially change the analysis. For a summary of changes, see here. For updated demographic figures for the Netherlands, please contact info@pewresearch.org.

Rapid increase in the number of asylum seekers from non-European and European countries alike between 2013 and 2015

In 2014, nearly 600,000 asylum applications were filed in the EU, Norway and Switzerland, a 47% increase over the more than 400,000 applications filed in 2013. In 2015, the number of asylum applications grew again, this time more than doubling 2014’s record to reach about 1.3 million (a 122% increase). The overall increase from 2013 to 2014 and again between 2014 and 2015 was reflected in the trajectory of new asylum seekers arriving from each of the three leading origin countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Refugees from Syria numbered 378,000 in 2015, accounting for 29% of all of Europe’s asylum seekers – the highest share of any nation. This was up from 125,000 in 2014 and 49,000 in 2013, helping to drive the recent surge in asylum applications. An additional quarter of asylum seekers in 2015 were from other relatively new origin countries, including 193,000 from Afghanistan (up from 23,000 in 2013 and 39,000 in 2014) and another 127,000 from Iraq (up from 9,000 in 2013 and 15,000 in 2014).

Some of the origins of Europe’s asylum seekers in 2015 were regions that have sent past waves of migrants. Nearly one-in-five asylum seekers in 2015 (17%) came from European countries outside the EU, Norway and Switzerland, including asylum seekers from Kosovo (68,000 in 2015, up from 35,000 in 2014), Albania (67,000 in 2015, up from 16,000 in 2014) and Ukraine (21,000 in 2015, up from 14,000 in 2014), regions that had once sent migrants when they were a part of the former Yugoslavia and USSR. (See detailed chart in Appendix B noting the increase in origin countries besides Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.)

Germany is leading destination; UK, France receive fewer asylum seekers

Germany received an unprecedented 442,000 individual first-time asylum applications in 2015 – the highest annual number ever received by a European country over the past 30 years. Asylum applicants to Germany alone accounted for about one-third of Europe’s 2015 asylum seekers.

Germany has long been a primary destination for asylum seekers. In the late 1980s and 1990s, it received nearly half of Europe’s annual asylum applications. And over the past 30 years, Germany has received at least 3.6 million asylum applications, or nearly one-third (32%) of all asylum applications in Europe over the period.

France and the UK were once leading destinations of Europe’s asylum seekers. Between 2000 and 2010, France was the leading destination of asylum seekers for five years and the UK was the leading destination for four years. However, in 2015, both the UK and France had far fewer asylum applicants than Germany, Hungary or Sweden. The UK received only 39,000 asylum applications last year, while France received 71,000 applications. ²

Hungary received the second largest number of asylum applicants in 2015. In all, Hungary received 174,000 asylum applications or about 13% of Europe’s asylum seekers in 2015.

Sweden received the third highest number of asylum applicants in 2015. Its share of Europe’s asylum seekers has grown to about 10% or more of all asylum seekers in recent years, posting a record 156,000 applicants in 2015. Sweden alone accepted more asylum seekers than France and the UK combined. Sweden was also the most popular destination country for unaccompanied asylum seekers under age 18, receiving 35,000 applicants from this group in 2015.

Asylum seekers to Europe are largely young and male

Over half (53%) of asylum seekers to the European Union, Norway and Switzerland in 2015 were young adults – those ages 18 to 34. This was also generally the top age group among asylum seekers in Europe from the three leading origin countries. Roughly half of those from Syria (50%), Iraq (56%) and Afghanistan (45%) were young adults in 2015.

In addition, men made up nearly three-fourths (73%) of Europe’s asylum seekers in 2015. Refugees from leading origin countries such as Syria (71%), Iraq (75%) and Afghanistan (80%) were also predominately male in 2015. By contrast, asylum seekers from other top origin countries, such as Gambia (97% male), Pakistan (95% male) and Bangladesh (95% male), were almost entirely male.

As a result, about four-in-ten asylum seekers in Europe in 2015 (42%) were young men ages 18 to 34. This was also true for most leading origin countries: 39% of those from Syria were young men, as were 38% of those from Afghanistan and 47% of those from Iraq. Young adult males made up a larger share of asylum seekers from some origin countries. For example, roughly three-fourths of asylum seekers from Gambia (80%), Pakistan (76%) and Bangladesh (76%) were young adult men in 2015.

The demographic profile of asylum seekers in destination countries varies considerably. About four-in-ten asylum seekers applying in Germany (39%) in 2015 were young adult males, about the same level as asylum seekers to Europe (42%) as a whole. In Hungary, about half (51%) of asylum seekers were more young adult men. In Sweden, just 28% of asylum seekers were young men in 2015. Meanwhile, young adult men made up 74% of asylum seekers in Italy, the highest share of any country in 2015.

Europe has also seen a spike in the number of unaccompanied minors (children under 18 who arrived in Europe without adult guardians) applying for asylum in recent years. Between 2008 and 2015, 198,500 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, of which nearly half (48% or about 96,000) arrived in 2015. Among all first-time asylum applications in 2015, nearly 7% were from unaccompanied minors, the highest share since data on unaccompanied minors became available in 2008.

The impact of asylum seekers and migrants on Europe’s population

European Union countries, Norway and Switzerland are leading destinations for asylum seekers and other migrants alike. Prior to the 2015 surge of asylum seekers, 35 million immigrants born outside of the EU, Norway and Switzerland lived in these countries, representing fully 14% of the world’s international migrants.

Even though a record number of asylum seekers arrived in Europe in 2015, the surge has had a limited impact on the share of the overall resident population in the EU, Norway and Switzerland that is foreign born. That share is up only 0.3 percentage points, from 11.0% foreign born in 2015 to 11.3% in 2016. It has had a large impact, however, in leading destination countries like Sweden, Hungary and Austria, whose foreign-born shares rose by more than 1 percentage point in a single year. By way of comparison, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population increased by 1 percentage point between 2005 and 2015. (The U.S. has about one-fifth of the world’s immigrants and has historically been the world’s top destination for international migrants.)

Although Europe has received a large number of Syrian asylum seekers since the Syrian conflict began, only about one-in-ten displaced Syrians worldwide are living in Europe. The vast majority is internally displaced within Syria or is living as refugees in countries that border Syria.

About the data

Asylum seeker data presented in this report are based on asylum applications as reported by European Union member states, Norway and Switzerland to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency. Since 2008, these countries have provided Eurostat with data on their asylum seekers using standardized definitions. So as to avoid duplication of asylum seekers, only first-time applications (not appeals) were used in the report’s analysis for years 2008 through 2015.

Data prior to 2008 and reported by Eurostat were voluntarily provided by European countries, and were often based on definitions of asylum seekers that were inconsistent across countries and across years. Historical data from prior to 2008 are used only to put the current migration wave into a greater 30-year context. Asylum application data for 2016, while available, are incomplete and subject to Eurostat revisions. As a result, data on asylum applications for 2016 have not been included in this report. For more information on the report’s data analysis and the Eurostat data, see the report’s methodology.

The number of European Union member states has grown since 1985, with significant increases in 1995, 2004 and 2007. Although data for some countries in some years are missing (see Appendix A), historical estimates of asylum seekers in this report include all 30 countries (EU-28 plus Norway and Switzerland), even though many of these countries were not considered part of the EU until recent years. At the time of the publication of this report, the UK was still part of the European Union, even though the country voted on June 23, 2016, to leave the EU.

This report focuses on the migration of first-time asylum seekers in Europe. The analysis does not include the net number of people who remain in Europe after asylum cases are decided. It also does not explore overall international migration patterns to Europe. Although applying for asylum has become a common way for migrants to enter Europe, migrants also enter via family ties or employment visas.

Road map to the report

Chapter 1 looks at the origins of asylum seekers, both in 2015 and in earlier years. Chapter 2 examines the changing destinations of asylum seekers. Meanwhile, Chapter 3 puts origins and destinations together to track the geographic flows between countries. Finally, Chapter 4 is a demographic profile of recent asylum seekers, including their age and sex, and includes a special focus on unaccompanied minors.

In 2015, a record 1.3 million individuals applied for asylum in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland. This was more than a twofold increase from 2014, when nearly 600,000 people applied for asylum. This dramatic rise in asylum applications followed a relatively stable period of about roughly 200,000 applicants each year between 2005 and 2010 and around 300,000 annual applicants in 2011 and 2012.

The leading country of citizenship for Europe’s asylum applicants in 2015 was Syria, which accounted for 378,000 asylum seekers, or 29% of all applicants. Second was Afghanistan, with 193,000 asylum seekers in 2015. Well over half (53%) of all asylum seekers in 2015 held citizenship from one of these countries or Iraq.

A mixed group of source countries represent the remaining leading points of origin for asylum seekers in Europe during 2015. Kosovo and Albania were each the country of origin of about 5% of asylum seekers. In fact, Europe received about the same number of asylum applications from Kosovo and Albania combined as from Iraq in 2015. Slightly fewer than 50,000 asylum seekers had Pakistani or Eritrean citizenship in 2015. Asylum applicants from Iran, several sub-Saharan countries like Nigeria, Somalia and Gambia, as well as European countries such as Ukraine, Serbia and Russia rounded out the leading countries of citizenship for Europe’s asylum seekers.

The EU, Norway and Switzerland saw large increases of asylum seekers in 2014 from some of the largest countries of origin in 2013 and again for the same countries between 2014 and 2015, when the latest wave of asylum seekers reached Europe. For several leading source countries, the volume of asylum applications doubled in 2014 (from 2013) and doubled again for many countries in 2015 (from 2014).

Syria had the greatest annual asylum applicant increase between 2013 and 2015, with about 49,000 asylum seekers in 2013, 125,000 in 2014 and 378,000 in 2015.

But it was Ukraine, Iraq and Afghanistan that saw the greatest annual percentage increases between 2013 and 2015 among the top 15 source countries of asylum seekers in 2015. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of asylum seekers from Ukraine increased nearly 24-fold, while Iraq increased nearly 14-fold. Meanwhile, the number of Afghan applicants increased nearly nine fold between 2013 and 2015, and Syria’s number of annual asylum seekers increased nearly eightfold during the same period.

Of the 1.3 million asylum seekers entering the European Union, Norway and Switzerland in 2015, over half applied for asylum in just three countries: Germany, Hungary and Sweden. Among these three nations, Germany received more asylees than the other two combined and retained its status as Europe’s leading destination for asylum seekers – a distinction it has held since 2012.

Germany received about a third (or 442,000) of Europe’s asylum applications in 2015. This was well over twice as many applicants as it received in 2014 (174,000).

Finland, however, had the largest annual increase in asylum applicants of any EU country. The number of asylum seekers increased more than 800%, from more than 3,000 in 2014 to 32,000 in 2015. Meanwhile, Hungary also saw a rapid rise in the number of asylum seekers, more than quadrupling from 41,000 in 2014 to 174,000 in 2015.

In 2015, about 12% (156,000) of all of Europe’s asylum seekers applied in Sweden, making it the third-ranked country in the number of asylum applications received. Asylum seekers have increasingly gone to Sweden in recent years to apply for asylum. Overall, roughly one-in-ten asylum seekers have applied in Sweden each year during the past decade. And, it was the leading destination of unaccompanied minors in Europe in 2015.

The UK and France are no longer leading asylum seeker destinations

Prior to 2000, Germany annually had more asylum applications than any other European country – a pattern extending back, uninterrupted, to 1985. These asylum seekers were from a range of countries, and many came from other European countries after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s and the destabilization of the former Yugoslavia in that decade. For several years in the 1980s and 1990s, Germany’s annual share of asylum applications was roughly half or more of all of Europe’s asylum applications.

A temporary shift in the leading countries of application occurred in the early 2000s. In 2000, 2002 and 2003, the UK became the leading destination country of asylum seekers in Europe, many of whom came from Iraq and Somalia. Between 2004 and 2011, France was often the leading destination. Many of these asylum seekers came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Russia, Turkey and countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Germany resumed its previous spot as the leading recipient of asylum applications in 2012, largely due to the growing number of asylum seekers from other European countries such as Kosovo, Russia and Serbia as well as countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria.

It is notable that the share of asylum seekers more recently applying in Germany is more on par with the shares of asylum applications for Germany prior to 2000. ³ Since 2013, Germany received more than a quarter of annual asylum seekers in Europe. France and the UK never had a quarter or more of Europe’s annual asylum applications when they were the leading countries of destination.

Germany is the largest recipient of asylum applications since 1985

When summed together for all years between 1985 and 2015, nearly one-third (more than 3.6 million) of Europe’s asylum applications were registered in Germany. And since 1985, the UK and France each received about one-in-ten (or more than 1 million) of Europe’s asylum applications.

Countries with smaller resident populations such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium also each received hundreds of thousands of asylum applications between 1985 and 2015.

Asylum seekers make their way to Europe in fits and starts, by direct as well as indirect routes, by air, land and sea. Consequently, it is difficult to trace the precise paths taken by thousands of asylum seekers. However, by pairing the country where a migrant is seeking asylum with the country that same migrant lists as country of citizenship, it is possible to identify “bilateral migration corridors” – i.e., flows between points of origin and destination. These corridors can provide a sense for who is seeking asylum where.

In the case of Syrian refugees moving between the Middle East and Europe in 2015, fully 84% applied for asylum in just five countries (Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands). The Syria-Germany corridor was the most active one in 2015, with 159,000 Syrians seeking asylum in Germany. Other major corridors included Syria-Hungary (64,000 asylum seekers), Albania-Germany (54,000) and Syria-Sweden (51,000).

Syria has been the point of origin for the largest asylum seeker corridors during the past few years. This was true in 2015 as well as 2014, when Europe’s largest asylum seeker corridor was also Syria to Germany, with 39,000 applicants or 7% of asylum applications in Europe. In 2013, the Syria-Sweden corridor was the largest asylum seeker flow, numbering 17,000 people or 4% of all asylum applications.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Albania and Nigeria were the leading source countries after Syria in 2015 for asylum seeker flows to specific countries within Europe.

The intensity of 2015’s sudden migration of asylum seekers was felt more acutely in some European countries than in others. By far, Hungary (1,770 per 100,000 in Hungary’s population), Sweden (1,600 per 100,000) and Austria (1,000 per 100,000) felt the effects of the asylum seeker surge the most in 2015. Germany (540 per 100,000) had a higher per capita number of asylum applicants than Europe (250 per 100,000) as a whole and was similar to other leading destinations such as Finland (590 per 100,000), Norway (590 per 100,000) and Switzerland (460 per 100,000). By contrast, France (110 per 100,000) and the UK (60 per 100,000) had a far lower per capita number of asylum seekers.

Syrian refugees did not evenly disperse in Europe

As suggested above, Syrian and other asylum seekers have tended to concentrate along specific migration corridors en route to Europe. This has contributed to the uneven distribution of asylum seekers across the EU-28, Norway and Switzerland. In some countries, particular groups make up a sizable portion of all asylum seekers, even when the countries in question are not part of Europe’s main asylee corridors.

In 2015, Syria was the leading source country of asylum seekers in 13 out of 30 European countries. Among these nearly dozen countries, Syrian asylees constituted a third or more of all asylum seekers in Romania (45%), Cyprus (43%), Netherlands (43%), Denmark (41%), Spain (39%), Hungary (37%), Germany (36%), Norway (35%) and Sweden (33%). In no country did Syrians make up more than half of all asylum seekers.

Asylees from Ukraine were the largest group of asylum seekers in four countries last year: Portugal (42%), Estonia (42%), Czech Republic (46%) and Lithuania (22%), while Iraqis were the largest contingent of asylum applicants in Slovakia (63%), Finland (63%) and Bulgaria (34%). No other group, including Afghans, was the predominant source of asylum seekers in more than two European countries in 2015.

Since 2013, the demographic profile of asylum seekers in the EU-28, Norway and Switzerland has become slightly more male (67% in 2013, 71% in 2014 and 73% in 2015), with a steady share of asylum seekers arriving under 35 years of age (80% in 2013 and in 2014, 83% in 2015).

Among all asylum seekers in 2015, about two-in-ten (19%) were male minors (0 to 17 years of age), compared with one-in-ten who were female minors. And while about four-in-ten (42%) asylum seekers were young adult males (18 to 34 years of age) in 2015, just about one-in-ten (11%) were young adult females in the same age bracket.

These age and gender patterns are largely consistent across some of the largest asylum seeker groups, including those from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Somalia. The large proportion of young males and comparatively smaller shares of young adult women and female children suggests that many refugees from these source countries are young men traveling alone. This situation seems especially likely in the case of asylum seekers from Pakistan and Bangladesh, among whom three-quarters were males ages 18 to 34 in 2015. By contrast, data suggest that asylum seekers from countries like Russia, Serbia and Ukraine tend to relocate as families: Fully 30% to 50% of asylum seekers from these countries were minors accompanied by adults.

Unaccompanied minors have been largely teenage boys, most from Afghanistan

The percentage of unaccompanied minors among all asylum seekers to Europe rose in 2015 , reaching roughly 7% of all asylum applicants. Between 2008 and 2015, about 70% to 80% of these unaccompanied minors annually were boys ages 14 to 17. About 10% annually were girls in the same age cohort. Since data on unaccompanied minors have been tracked by Eurostat starting in 2008, about 10% of unaccompanied minors annually have been ages 13 and under in any given year.

Since 2008, 39% of all unaccompanied minor asylum seekers have come from Afghanistan. In all, about 77,000 unaccompanied minors, mostly teenage boys, have made the trek from Afghanistan to Europe. A further 19,000 unaccompanied minors from Syria have applied for asylum between 2008 and 2015. And an additional 13,000 unaccompanied minors from Somalia as well as 12,000 from Eritrea have sought asylum in Europe since 2008.

Since 2008, more than half of unaccompanied minors have arrived in Sweden, Germany or the UK. Indeed, about three-in-ten unaccompanied minor asylum seekers to Europe applied in Sweden, yet Sweden was the destination for only about one-in-ten (12%) of Europe’s total number of asylum seekers during the period.

This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals.

Phillip Connor, Research AssociateMark Hugo Lopez, Director of Hispanic ResearchJens Manuel Krogstad, Writer/Editor
James Bell, Vice President, Global Strategy
Gustavo López, Research Assistant
Danielle Cuddington, Research Analyst
Ben Wormald, Web Developer
Diana Yoo, Art Director
Yolanda Martinez, Digital Producer
David Kent, Copy Editor
Michael Keegan, Graphics Designer Kelly Browning, Manager, User Experience

The analysis of this report is based on asylum application data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency. Eurostat is a central repository of the European Union’s economic, environmental and population data. Its goal is to provide high quality statistics that enable comparisons across countries.

Annual data were accessed on June 22, 2016. The asylum application by year files (2008 to 2015, first-time applications only) and (1985 to 2007, all applications) were used for annual estimates.

Data showing the origins, destinations, sex and age of asylum seekers between 2008 and 2015 use a standardized set of definitions for asylum seekers. Also, EU legislation on processing asylum seekers has become more consistent across member states in recent years. Consequently, data since 2008 are considered reliable and consistent across countries and years. There is a small chance that individual asylum seekers are recorded multiple times within and across European countries. But, these situations are rare because of centralized databases (EURODAC), used by EU member states in recent years. The analysis of data since 2008 in this report assumes that each case in the data file represents an individual person and is based on first-time applicants only, not appeals or asylum seekers applying again.

Data of asylum seekers between 1985 and 2007, however, are not consistent across countries and years. Countries voluntarily reported asylum applications to Eurostat before 2008 and did so in different ways. Some countries during these years, for example, counted a household as a single application, even though several individuals may be on one application. This way of counting would present a lower number of applicants seeking asylum. In the other direction, some countries counted application appeals in their total numbers of asylum seekers. This type of double counting would inflate the number of individuals seeking asylum. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether these two biases on how individual applicants are counted cancel each other out.

Consistent with previous publications produced by Eurostat on asylum seekers, application estimates between 1985 and 2007 are based on the total origins of asylum seekers, and therefore do not include detailed information about places of origin, only destinations. ⁴ Data for destination countries with the largest volume of asylum seekers (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK) are available for most years.

A small share of data since 2008 (less than 5% for most years and countries) have unknown origins of asylum seekers. Also a small share of data since 2008 (again less than 5% for most years and member states) contain unknown gender and age of asylum seekers. These unknown cases were included in the calculations of percentages throughout the report, except where specified by footnotes.

Estimates presented in this report are rounded to the nearest thousand, except for per capita estimates which are rounded to the nearest ten. Although exact counts are available from Eurostat, there is the potential for numbers to be slightly incorrect as underlying data may consist of some provisional estimates or incomplete data. Percentages are also rounded to whole numbers for the same reason. Percentages were rounded from unrounded estimates.

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