Sunday, August 23, 2026 - At least 1,917 Nigerians applied for asylum in the Netherlands in 2024 and 2025, according to the latest data obtained by Sunday PUNCH from the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service.
The figures are drawn from the Asylum Information Database’s
Netherlands country reports for 2024 and 2025, compiled for the AIDA project by
the Dutch Council for Refugees, VluchtelingenWerk Nederland, and published by
the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service, also known as the IND, and
Eurostat.
According to the report, Nigeria is one of only four African
nationalities to rank among the Dutch government’s top 10 countries of origin
for asylum applicants in both years.
Sunday PUNCH observed that applications from Nigerians rose
year-on-year.
applied for asylum, comprising 770 first-time applicants and
161 subsequent applicants, according to the AIDA-NL 2024 Update.
Applications climbed to 986 in 2025, comprising 813
first-time applicants and 173 subsequent applicants, a rise of 5.9 per cent,
according to the AIDA-NL 2025 Update.
The reports, however, revealed that the numbers didn’t
encompass family reunification, meaning the true number of Nigerians who joined
family in the Netherlands over the period is not captured in the asylum
figures.
Globally, Nigeria ranked ninth among the top 10
nationalities of asylum applicants in 2024, alongside Syria (11,655), Iraq
(2,306), Türkiye (1,905), Eritrea (1,506), an “Unknown” nationality category of
1,437 applications, Algeria (1,216), Somalia (1,119) and Yemen (1,089), and
Iran (742).
In 2025, applications from Nigerians moved up to sixth
position among the identified nationalities, including Syria (3,373), Eritrea
(3,178), Türkiye (1,530), Algeria (1,454) and Somalia (1,384), and ahead of
Afghanistan (803), Sudan (796) and Pakistan (689).
Among African nationalities, Eritreans filed the highest
number of applications in both years combined, totalling 4,684 applicants.
Algeria followed with 2,670, Somalia with 2,503, and Nigeria
with 1,917.
The Republic of Sudan appeared only in the 2025 top 10, with
796 applicants, as its 2024 applications were lumped into the “Others”
category.
Together, the four to five African nationalities identified
in the two reports accounted for at least 12,570 applications out of the
Netherlands’ combined total of 59,599 asylum applicants over the two years, or
about 21.1 per cent.
On application outcomes, the decisions table showed that
Nigeria received 515 first-instance decisions in 2025, of which 425, or 83 per
cent, were rejections.
Only 65 applicants, or 13 per cent, were granted refugee
status. Ten, or 2 per cent, received subsidiary protection, and 15, or 3 per
cent, received humanitarian protection, a derived status typically granted to
family members of a recognised refugee.
Meanwhile, the overall rejection rate across all
nationalities in 2025 stood at 52 per cent, against a 48 per cent overall
protection rate. Nigeria’s rejection and acceptance rates stood at 83 per cent
and 13 per cent, respectively. Comparable disaggregated decision data for
Nigeria was not published for 2024, as Nigeria did not rank among that year’s
top 10 nationalities by decisions.
Also, Nigeria was not among the countries the Dutch
government had designated a “safe country of origin,” a status that enables a
fast-track rejection procedure, up until it was suspended nationwide in
September 2025 following rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Countries on the “safe country of origin” list include
Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia, among others.
According to the report, a Nigerian was involved in one of
only two cases nationwide in which the Dutch government had invoked the “first
country of asylum” concept, where an applicant is presumed to already have
protection in a third country.
It read, “In 2025, only two cases of application of the
first country of asylum were dealt with by a Dutch court. The cases concerned
Nigeria and the West Bank as the first country of asylum. Both cases were
dismissed by the Court, as it was unclear whether the applicants could be
admitted to these countries.”
In April 2026, the Dutch parliament passed a bill
introducing a “two-status system,” distinguishing between refugees and holders
of subsidiary protection status. The bill stipulates that holders of subsidiary
protection status will face a longer waiting time, an income requirement, and a
housing requirement before qualifying for family reunification.
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