In 2025, only a very small portion of EU member states followed Germany’s request to return asylum seekers who, according to the Dublin Regulation, should have been handled by those states. This conclusion comes from figures released by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and reported by the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”.
BAMF recorded 35,942 transfer requests directed at one of the other 26 EU countries. Of those, 23,912 applications were approved. In practice, however, just 5,377 asylum seekers were actually transferred. Italy lagged behind with the fewest transfers – one single transfer out of 6,229 requests.
The situation was even worse in 2024. That year, Germany had requested transfers in 74,583 cases. EU partner countries agreed to the transfer in 44,431 instances. Yet only 5,827 asylum seekers were ultimately moved.
The Dublin Regulation, which is part of the EU’s asylum system, states that the first EU country an asylum seeker enters is generally responsible for processing their application. If the person then travels to another EU state, like Germany, the initial entry country is normally expected to return them.
In the prior year, BAMF found that 16,530 transfer requests had been made to Germany. German authorities accepted 10,512 of those requests, but only 4,865 asylum seekers actually arrived in Germany.
