Safe country of origin

The Constitution defines as safe countries of origin the countries ‘in which, on the basis of their laws, enforcement practices and general political conditions, it can be safely concluded that neither political persecution nor inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment exists’.^[1]

List of safe countries of origin

Member states of the European Union are safe countries of origin.^[2] The list of safe countries of origin is an addendum to the law and must be adopted by the parliament and the Bundesrat. If the situation in a safe country of origin changes and it can no longer be safe within the meaning of the law, the Federal Government may issue a decree to remove this country from the list for a period of 6 months. In 2023, Georgia and Moldova were added to the list of safe countries of origin.[3]

In December 2025, the Bundestag adopted a new law fundamentally reshaping the procedure for designating “safe countries of origin” (SCO) in Germany.[4] Under the new framework, the Federal Government may now classify countries as safe by statutory ordinance (Rechtsverordnung), whereas previously such designations required a formal law adopted by parliament with the consent of the Bundesrat.[5] The law also introduces a two-year reporting obligation for the Federal Government to the Bundestag and requires submission of the classification to the Federal Administrative Court in the event of judicial doubts about a country’s status as “safe.”[6] For nationals of countries newly designated as safe who were already residing in Germany under tolerated or permitted status before the classification, exceptions to work bans are provided.[7] These changes are set to take effect on 1 February 2026.[8] Civil society organisations such as Der Paritätische or PRO ASYL have repeatedly criticised the concept of safe countries of origin in principle, highlighting that it imposes a reversal of the burden of proof in asylum proceedings and severe legal restrictions, including residence obligations and work prohibitions.[9] The association, alongside several academics also warn that the new regulation circumvents democratic debate over the designation of safe countries and creates the risk of inconsistent treatment of asylum claims due to the coexistence of multiple national and EU-wide safe country lists.[10]

This shift applies, however, only to protection grounds derived from EU asylum law; the constitutional regime under Article 16a (3) of the Basic Law (GG), which governs safe countries of origin in the constitutional sense, continues to require parliamentary legislation.[11] However, the practical relevance of the constitutional regime is expected to be limited, as the conditions for reviewing asylum claims under Article 16a (3) of the Basic Law apply in only a few cases.[12]

The move is grounded in EU law, notably the Asylum Procedures Directive, which allows Member States to designate safe countries subject to defined substantive and procedural safeguards. In a key judgment of 1 August 2025, the Court of Justice of the EU clarified that Member States must disclose the sources underlying their safety assessments and that safety must extend to the entire population and the whole territory of the country concerned—a requirement that will be modified from June 2026 onwards under the reformed Common European Asylum System (CEAS).[13] In the justification of the new legislation, the government argues that allowing the federal cabinet to designate SCO by executive decree accelerates asylum procedures and signals that applications from these countries are unlikely to succeed.[14] According to the government, faster processing by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and quicker implementation of negative decisions will make Germany less attractive for asylum claims submitted for non-protection-related motives, reflecting past trends of declining applications from designated states.[15] The compatibility with German constitutional law is disputed and opinions on it are divided.[16]

As of 31 December 2025, the list of safe countries consists of:

• The member states of the EU,
• Ghana;
• Senegal;
• Serbia;
• North Macedonia;
• Bosnia-Herzegovina;
• Albania;
• Kosovo;
• Montenegro
• Georgia

Serbia, North Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were added to the list following the entry into force of a law on 6 November 2014.^[17] Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro were added with another law which took effect on 24 October 2015.^[18] As explained in the previous updates of this report, several bills were tabled with the aim to add certain countries to the list of safe countries (such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia in April 2016) or Georgia in 2018 but the draft bill was removed from the Bundesrat’s agenda in February 2019 as it became obvious that it would be rejected again.[19] The bill was not reintroduced again before the federal elections of September 2021. In 2023, the discussion on safe countries of origin resurfaced, and led to heated discussions among the governing parties, as well as between the government and the opposition. The oppositional party Christian Democrats (CDU) claims that also other North African states such as e.g., Algeria and Tunisia should be recognised as safe countries of origin. In December 2023, the standing conference of Ministers of Interior and Senators of the state adopted a resolution to include Armenia, India and the Maghreb states to the list of safe countries of origin.[20] However, the Federal government only included Moldova and Georgia to the list. The governing party The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) voiced concern to the concept of safe third countries as such but in the end consented nevertheless to the decision to include Moldova and Georgia to the list.[21] The opposition party The Left and several NGOs questioned the safety in both countries (in Moldova, issues of widespread discrimination against Roma people; in Georgie, issues of backlash to democracy and rule of law, and lack of respect for LBGTQI rights).[22]  As of December 2025, Germany’s national list of safe countries includes Senegal, Ghana, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro, as well as Moldova and Georgia since 2023.[23] According to the coalition agreement of 9 April 2025, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and India are to be added.[24] In parallel, the EU has moved towards harmonisation: in April 2025 the European Commission proposed an EU-wide list of safe countries of origin, which was adopted by the Council of EU interior ministers in December 2025.[25] This list comprises Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Morocco and Tunisia, and also presumes EU accession candidate countries to be safe unless individuals or groups face violence or serious harm. Under the CEAS reform, asylum applications from countries with a protection rate below 20 per cent are moreover to be processed under accelerated procedures.[26]

Since 2015, the Federal Government must issue a report every two years to determine whether the requirements to be designated a safe country of origin continue to apply, based on the political and legal situation in each country as well as the practical enforcement of existing laws. The last such report was published in March 2024, and concluded that all eight countries continue to fulfil the requirements. The report does not mention the December 2023 additions that were Georgia and Moldova yet as it only reports about the situation in the respective countries between October 2021 and October 2023.[27] NGOs however regularly criticise the designation of some of the countries on the list.^[28] In March 2025, the Verwaltungsgericht Berlin (Administrative Court Berlin) issued a decision casting doubt on the legality of Germany’s classification of Georgia as a “safe country of origin” under asylum law.[29] The court reviewed an Eilbeschluss (interim order) in a case brought by a Georgian couple seeking protection in Germany and held that significant parts of Georgia — notably the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are not under effective government control and feature serious human-rights concerns — undermine the premise that the entire territory meets the criteria for safety as required by EU asylum law.[30] Relying on relevant EU case law from the European Court of Justice, the court emphasized that EU Member States may not designate a country as “safe” if any part of its territory fails to offer consistent protection against persecution or other serious harm, including in relation to vulnerable groups such as LGBTIQ+ persons.[31] While the decision does not automatically force the German government to remove Georgia from the safe country list, it underscores that the current designation may conflict with EU law and opens the door for further judicial scrutiny in the pending main proceedings.[32]

 Procedural consequences

Applications of asylum applicants from safe countries of origin shall be considered as manifestly unfounded, unless the applicant presents facts or evidence which justify the conclusion that they might be persecuted despite the general situation in the country of origin.

Since March 2016, accelerated procedures can be carried out for applicants from safe countries of origin. However, this is only possible in branch offices of the BAMF to which a ‘special reception centre’ has been assigned, and in 2020 the procedure was applied in comparatively few cases, and only in arrival centres or AnkER centres in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia (see Accelerated procedure).

The number of applications from asylum applicants from safe countries of origin significantly decreased in recent years and have remained on a low level since 2018. In 2025, asylum applications from safe countries of origin remained largely absent from the group of the most relevant countries of origin in Germany. According to the available data on first-time applications, none of the designated safe countries—such as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Ghana, Senegal, Georgia, or Moldova—featured among the ten most common nationalities of asylum applicants. This confirms the longer-term trend that applications from these countries are comparatively low in number.[33] Among the safe countries, only Georgia had appeared in the top 10 in previous years, but it no longer ranked among the most significant countries of origin in 2025.[34]

In terms of numbers of applications in 2025, those from safe countries of origin remained at a comparatively low level and continued to play only a minor role within the overall asylum system in Germany.[35] In total, Germany registered 113,236 asylum applications, including 79,140 first-time applications from the ten main countries of origin alone. Against this backdrop, the combined number of applications from the relevant safe countries of origin amounted to 9,024, illustrating their limited quantitative significance.[36] Among these countries, Georgia recorded the highest number of applications, with 2,395 in total, consisting of 1,663 first applications and 732 follow-up applications.[37] This was followed by Moldova with 1,590 applications (505 first and 1,085 follow-up applications) and North Macedonia with 1,259 applications (563 first and 696 follow-up applications). Serbia (1,097 applications; 543 first and 554 follow-up), Kosovo (882; 596 first and 286 follow-up), and Albania (611; 368 first and 243 follow-up) also formed part of the main group. Lower figures were recorded for Bosnia and Herzegovina (461 total), Ghana (400), Montenegro (179), and Senegal (150).[38] A notable feature is that in several of these countries—particularly Moldova, North Macedonia, and Serbia—the number of follow-up applications equals or exceeds the number of first-time applications, pointing to a pattern of repeated applications after previous rejections. In comparison to the main countries of origin, the scale of applications from safe countries remains very limited. For example, Afghanistan alone accounted for 64,104 applications in total, including 23,972 first applications, while Syria recorded 24,240 applications (23,256 first applications). Thus, Afghanistan alone generated more applications than all safe countries of origin combined by a wide margin.[39]

The following table shows statistics for asylum applications by relevant nationalities:

Source: BAMF, Asylgeschäftsstatistik (statistics on applications, decisions and pending procedures), available in German at: https://bit.ly/3rnIEzR (2020), https://bit.ly/3goPTTa (2021), https://bit.ly/3IMppKK (2022) https://bit.ly/3UjFWf0 (2023) and here (2024).

The 2025 data on outcome of asylum procedures for individuals from safe countries of origin show that only a small number of applicants were granted protection. For instance, the overall protection rate (including all forms of protection) stood at 0.1% for North Macedonia (1 case), 0.2% for Moldova (1 case), 0.4% for Serbia (3 cases), 0.5% for Albania (4 cases), and 0.7% for Bosnia and Herzegovina (2 cases). Even where slightly higher figures were recorded, such as for Senegal (11 cases; 4.1%) or Ghana (26 cases; 4.5%), recognition rates remained comparatively low.[40]

With regard to Georgia, which had already dropped out of the top 10 countries of origin in 2024, the low relevance of applications continued in 2025, with only 16 positive decisions recorded and an overall protection rate of 0.5%.[41]

To illustrate the developments of protection rates of ‘safe countries of origin’, the following table includes decisions on first applications from Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia. The figures include all cases in which refugee status, subsidiary protection or (national) humanitarian protection / a removal ban was granted:

^[1] Article 16a(3) Basic Law.

^[2] Section 29a(2) Asylum Act.

[3] Gesetz zur Bestimmung Georgiens und der Republik Moldau als sichere Herkunftsstaaten, BGBl. I Nr. 382, 22 December 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3vRc9A6.

[4] Act on the Determination of Safe Countries of Origin by Statutory Ordinance and on the Abolition of the Court‑Appointed Legal Representative in Deportation Custody and Pre‑Return Detention, Federal Law Gazette (Bundesgesetzblatt) 2025 I No. 364 (22 Dec. 2025), effective from 24 December 2025, amending the Asylum Act, Residence Act, Nationality Act, and related provisions, available in German here.

[5] Mediendienst Integration (2025), Sichere Herkunftsstaaten: Länderliste und Zahlen, Mediendienst Integration, available here.

[6] Act on the Determination of Safe Countries of Origin by Statutory Ordinance and on the Abolition of the Court‑Appointed Legal Representative in Deportation Custody and Pre‑Return Detention, Federal Law Gazette (Bundesgesetzblatt) 2025 I No. 364 (22 Dec. 2025), effective from 24 December 2025, amending the Asylum Act, Residence Act, Nationality Act, and related provisions, available in German here.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Der Paritätische, Tips and Current Information 2026/02: Der Paritätische on the Current Amendments to Asylum, Residence and Nationality Law, 12 January 2026; PRO ASYL, “Sichere Staaten” per Rechtsverordnung zu bestimmen ist undemokratisch und verfassungsrechtlich fragwürdig, 4 June 2025, PRO ASYL (online), available in German here.

[10] Ibid. See also, Valentin Feneberg, Asylwende mit Hindernissen: Zur Aussetzung des Familiennachzugs bei subsidiärem Schutz und zu “sicheren Herkunftsstaaten” per Rechtsverordnung, Verfassungsblog, 05 June 2025, available in German here, and Darren Seiffert & Lena Riemer, Undermining Asylum Protection Through Administrative Shortcuts: Germany’s Proposal to Designate Safe Countries of Origin by Executive Decree, Verfassungsblog (28 Nov. 2025),  available here.

[11] Mediendienst Integration (2025), Sichere Herkunftsstaaten: Länderliste und Zahlen, Mediendienst Integration, available in German here.

[12] Der Paritätische, Tips and Current Information 2026/02: Der Paritätische on the Current Amendments to Asylum, Residence and Nationality Law, 12 January 2026.

[13] Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber), Joined Cases C‑758/24 (LC) and C‑759/24 (CP), Judgment of 1 August 2025, Reference for a preliminary ruling – Asylum policy – Directive 2013/32/EU – Safe country of origin – Designation by legislative act – Right to an effective remedy (Articles 36, 37, 46, 47 CFR), available at CURIA, available here.

[14] Act on the Determination of Safe Countries of Origin by Statutory Ordinance and on the Abolition of the Court‑Appointed Legal Representative in Deportation Custody and Pre‑Return Detention, Federal Law Gazette (Bundesgesetzblatt) 2025 I No. 364 (22 Dec. 2025), effective from 24 December 2025, amending the Asylum Act, Residence Act, Nationality Act, and related provisions, available in German here.

[15] Act on the Determination of Safe Countries of Origin by Statutory Ordinance and on the Abolition of the Court‑Appointed Legal Representative in Deportation Custody and Pre‑Return Detention, Federal Law Gazette (Bundesgesetzblatt) 2025 I No. 364 (22 Dec. 2025), effective from 24 December 2025, amending the Asylum Act, Residence Act, Nationality Act, and related provisions, available in German here.

[16] On the one hand scholar Daniel Thym argues that a list of “small” safe countries for EU law purposes could be adopted without Upper House approval. Others, including PRO ASYL, Thorsten Kingreen, and Valentin Feneberg view it as a dangerous circumvention of parliamentary oversight, or inefficient arguing that it risks undermining constitutional guarantees). See, Daniel Thym, Europäisches Asylrecht auf der Überholspur : Zur Option einer Liste “kleiner” sicherer Herkunftsländer, Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik (ZRP). C.H. Beck. 2020, 53(2), pp. 52-55.  PRO ASYL, “Sichere Staaten” per Rechtsverordnung zu bestimmen ist undemokratisch und verfassungsrechtlich fragwürdig, 4 June 2025, PRO ASYL (online), available here; Thorsten Kingreen & Marje Mülder, Legal Opinion on Safe Countries of Origin (Rechtsgutachten Sichere Herkunftsstaaten) (Sept. 2021) (prepared for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Parliamentary Group), available here; Valentin Feneberg, Asylwende mit Hindernissen: Zur Aussetzung des Familiennachzugs bei subsidiärem Schutz und zu “sicheren Herkunftsstaaten” per Rechtsverordnung, Verfassungsblog (5 June 2025), available here.

^[17] Gesetz zur Einstufung weiterer Staaten als sichere Herkunftsstaaten und zur Erleichterung des Arbeitsmarktzugangs für Asylbewerber und geduldete Ausländer, BGBl. I, No. 49, 5 November 2014, 1649.

^[18]  Asylverfahrensbeschleunigungsgesetz, BGBl. I, 23 October 2015, 1722.

[19] Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Einstufung der Demokratischen Volksrepublik Algerien, des Königreichs Marokko und der Tunesischen Republik als sichere Herkunftsstaaten, 68/16, available in German at: http://bit.ly/2kSi5CO; Bundesrat, ‘Keine Zustimmung: Gesetz zu sicheren Herkunftsstaaten’, 10 March 2017, available at: http://bit.ly/1owVXpm; Spiegel, ‘Bundesrat verschiebt Abstimmung über sichere Herkunftsländer’, 15 February 2019, available in German at: https://bit.ly/2urOtiw.

[20] Innenministerkonferenz (IMK), Sammlung der zu Veröffentlichung freigegebenen Beschlüsse, 8 December 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3UpXztD, 13.

[21] Tagesschau.de, Moldau und Georgien ja, Maghreb-Staaten nein, 4 September 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/42oPzuQ.

[22] PRO ASYL, Stellungnahme zum Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Bestimmung Georgiens und der Republik Moldau als sichere Herkunftsstaaten, 25 August 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3Uimijq; Clara Bünger, Georgien und Moldau dürfen nicht als »sichere Herkunftsstaaten« eingestuft werden!, 12 October 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3vVdl5q.

[23] Mediendienst Integration (2025), Sichere Herkunftsstaaten: Länderliste und Zahlen, Mediendienst Integration, available in German here.

[24] Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU), Coalition Agreement 2025 (9 Apr. 2025), available here.

[25] Mediendienst Integration (2025), Sichere Herkunftsstaaten: Länderliste und Zahlen, Mediendienst Integration, available in German here.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Federal Government, Vierter Bericht zu der Überprüfung der Voraussetzungen zur Einstufung der in Anlage II zum Asylgesetz bezeichneten sicheren Herkunftsstaaten, 20/10750, available in German at: https://tinyurl.com/4aw9pumm.

^[28] See for example Flüchtlingsrat Tühringen, Sogenannte “sichere” Herkunftsländer, August 2021, available in German at: http://bit.ly/3JGdXQF; PRO ASYL, Neuer Anlauf für einen rechtswidrigen Gesetzentwurf: Erweiterung der »sicheren Herkunftsländer«, 21 September 2018, available in German at: http://bit.ly/3YR6q6b. PRO ASYL, Was heißt hier sicher? Wie die Innenminister*innen Geflüchtete entrechten wollen, 27 June 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3HDInBn.

[29] PRO ASYL, Warum Georgien kein sicherer Herkunftsstaat sein kann – VG Berlin weist Bundesregierung zurecht, 07 Apr. 2025, PRO ASYL, available in German here and Administrative Court Berlin, 11. March 2025, Az. 31 L 473/24 A published in the Berliner Vorschriften- und Rechtsprechungsdatenbank (NJRE001603416) here.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33]  BAMF, Das Bundesamt in Zahlen 2025, available in German here,19. 

[34] Ibid .

[35] BAMF, Asylgeschäftsstatistik (01-12/25), available in German here.

[36] Ibid

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Parliamentary Response, Printed Matter 21/4448, 2 March 2026, available in German here, 48.

[41] Ibid.