Greece tops EU per-capita asylum applications as Europe-wide numbers fall 17%

Greece received 2,254 asylum applications per million inhabitants in the first half of 2026, the highest rate in the EU+, per a European Union Agency for Asylum report. Europe-wide applications fell 17% to around 332,000, the lowest first-half total since 2019, driven by sharp drops from Syrians and Venezuelans.

Bottom line — Greece's per-capita rate of 2,254 applications per million is triple the EU+ average of 710.

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• Greece received about 23,000 applications, or 7% of the EU+ total, according to the EUAA report cited by Ekathimerini and ANSA.
• Cyprus ranked second with 1,732 applications per million, per the EUAA.
• France received the most applications in absolute terms with around 69,000, followed by Italy (66,000), Spain (55,000) and Germany (54,000), the EUAA said.
• Afghans were the largest applicant group with about 39,000 applications, followed by Venezuelans (33,000) and Bangladeshis (20,000), per the EUAA.
• Syrian applications fell 57% year-on-year to around 11,000, which the EUAA attributed largely to the political transition after the fall of Bashar Assad's government in December 2024.
• Greece was a key destination for Sudanese asylum seekers, receiving 34% of all Sudanese applications in the EU+, second only to France (39%), according to the EUAA.
• The EUAA cautioned it was too early to attribute the decline to the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered into application on June 12, as most data covered the period before its entry.

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