77,755 first-time applicants for international protection in the EU (non-EU nationals) in December 2023, a decrease of 3% compared to December 2022 (80,540), Eurostat reports.
There were also 5,595 subsequent applicants, a decrease of 12% compared to December 2022.
This information comes from the monthly asylum data published today by Eurostat. The article presents some of the findings from a more detailed Statistics Explained article on monthly asylum statistics.
In December 2023, the largest group of people seeking asylum (13,945 first-time applicants) were Syrians. They were followed by Turks (7,710), Afghans (6,055), Venezuelans (4,780) and Colombians (4,105).
Germany (23,020), France (11,435), Spain (10,750), Italy (10,160) and Greece (6,260) continued to receive the highest number of first-time asylum seekers, accounting for 79% of the total number of first-time asylum seekers in the EU.
In December 2023, the total number of first-time asylum seekers in the EU was 17.3 per hundred thousand people.
Compared to the population of each EU country (on 1 January 2023), the highest numbers of registered first-time applicants in December 2023 were in Cyprus (111.2) and Greece (60.2).
In December 2023, 2,315 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in the EU for the first time, with the majority coming from Syria (775) and Afghanistan (375).
