Almost one in four people who applied for asylum in the European Union in 2025 was under the age of 18. This is according to new figures from Eurostat. In total, there were 158,400 applications, accounting for 23.7 per cent of all first-time asylum applications that year.
Some of these children travelled to Europe without parents or other guardians. In 2025, 13.3 per cent of all first asylum applications from minors were submitted by unaccompanied children. This group therefore continues to account for a significant proportion of the total number of people applying for asylum.
In 2025, most first asylum applications from minors came from Afghanistan (16.9%), Syria (13.0%) and Venezuela (10.7%). The instability, authoritarian policies, sanctions and economic collapse in Venezuela have led to increasing numbers of families with children seeking asylum in Europe. The situation was different for unaccompanied children: most of them came from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria.
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