The numbers are around the level recorded in 2014 (530 600), before the peaks of 2015 and 2016 due to war in Syria.
With 148 175 first-time asylum applicants registered in 2021, Germany accounted for over one quarter of all first-time applicants in the EU (28%). It was followed by France (103 790, or 19%) and Spain (62 050, or 12%), ahead of Italy (43 900, or 8%) and Austria (36 725, or 7%). These five Member States together accounted for almost three quarters of all first-time asylum applicants in the EU.
Latvia's totals are well below the EU average, even when adjusted for population size. In 2021, in the EU as a whole, there were neary 1 200 first-time asylum applicants per million population. In Latvia the figure was just 300.
In raw numbers, there were 580 first-time asylum applications in Latvia, which while tiny in comparison with most other EU countries, still represents a four-fold increase on the 145 applications received in 2020.
Compared with the population of each Member State, the highest number of registered first-time asylum applicants in 2021 was recorded in Cyprus (14 799 first-time applicants per million residents), ahead of Austria (4 111) and Slovenia (2 474).
In contrast, the lowest numbers were recorded in Hungary (4 first-time applicants per million population), followed by Estonia (57) and Slovakia (60).
