Refugees: Fewer asylum seekers receive state services

The number of asylum seekers who receive benefits from the state has dropped in 2024. According to the Federal Statistical Office at the end of last year, 461,000 people in Germany received control services according to the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act – and thus about ten percent or 52,700 fewer than at the end of the year.

Foreigners who are in Germany and meet the requirements for this are entitled to perform. A distinction is made between control services and special services.

64 percent of the recipient of the standard power at the end of 2024 were male. 29 percent were minors. The most common countries of origin were Türkiye (15 percent), Syria (14 percent) and Afghanistan (11 percent) of all beneficiaries. Previously, the most common country of origin was Syria.

In addition to the control services, special services can also be granted in special needs situations. This includes services in the event of illness, pregnancy and birth. At the end of 2024, around 252,300 people received special services. Among them were around 13,000 beneficiaries who were exclusively entitled to special services.

Ukrainians usually get citizens’ money

Around five percent (around 25,200 people) of all beneficiaries at the end of 2024 came from Ukraine. Ukrainians came to Germany in the big escape movement after the Russian attack on Ukraine 2022 as an asylum seeker, but through a special rule. They were allowed to work immediately and, if they could not earn their livelihood, be entitled to citizenship.

According to plans by the black and red coalition, people from Ukraine who came to Germany and come to Germany after April 1, 2025 are no longer said to receive civil allowance, but lower benefits such as asylum seekers.

Around 700,000 Ukrainians are currently entitled to civil allowance, including around 200,000 children. Around 6.3 billion euros were paid to Ukrainians in 2024.

Fewer asylum applications in Germany

Most recently, the EU Asylagentur published its half-year balance sheet, according to which Germany for the first time in more than a decade is no longer the country with most new asylum applications.

In the first half of 2025, according to the statistics, the German authorities received 70,000 new applications. The Federal Republic is therefore in third place behind France (78,000) and Spain (77,000) within the EU. Germany has not been at the top for the first time since 2012.

EU further decline in asylum applications

By the end of June, the EU Asy Lag Tower counted almost 400,000 new applications, as the authority announced. Compared to the first half of 2024, this means a minus of 114,000 and 23 percent.

The authority, based on the island of Malta, attributed the decline in particular to the fall of Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad last December. For the first time in a decade, most new asylum seekers (25,000) no longer came from the Mediterranean country, but now from Venezuela (49,000) in South America. From Afghanistan, 42,000 people applied for asylum.