The small number places Latvia among the countries with the lowest number of asylum applications relative to the size of the population. In February 2024, the EU total of first-time asylum applicants was 16.8 per hundred thousand people. In contrast, Latvia's rate was around 1 applicant per 100,000 population.
Compared with the population of each EU country (on 1 January 2023), the highest rates of first-time applicants were recorded in Cyprus (87.1) and Greece (52.5).
At the end of February there were 525 asylum applications pending in Latvia, the data said, down from 620 the previous month.
