Methodology
EU countries are obliged by the EU legislation to follow agreed concepts, definitions, and breakdowns to ensure comparability in the asylum data they transmit to Eurostat.
Metadata
Asylum data are based on different Eurostat methodological and technical guidance for each of the data collection:
Statistical unit
The statistical unit for the statistics is the person. This means that the data provided count the number of people covered by an administrative event.
For statistics on temporary protection, asylum applications and decisions, a person must be counted only once during a given reference period.
For Dublin statistics, each submitted or received request, decision, transfer concerning the same person during the same reference period must be reported. This implies that one person can be reported more than once during a given reference period by the same EU country.
For more information, please read our Statistics Explained article Asylum statistics introduced
Data sources and compilation methods
The asylum data collections are based on administrative data sources only.
Data are compiled from the administrative records of the national authorities, mainly the interior ministries or immigration agencies to which asylum applicants lodge their application for international protection.