Types of accommodation

In general, 3 types of accommodation for asylum applicants can be distinguished:

• Initial reception centres, including particular types of centres such as arrival centres, special reception centres and AnkER-centres;
• Dublin centres;
• Collective accommodation centres;
• Decentralised accommodation.

Emergency shelters were reintroduced in a greater scale in 2022, especially in bigger cities, following the rising numbers of protection applicants from Afghanistan and Ukraine (See also Annex on Temporary Protection). According to a 2024 survey conducted by the University Hildesheim about the municipal accommodation of asylum applicants, approximately 40 % of German municipalities in the ‘western’ states, and 12 % in the Federal States formerly belonging to the GDR use emergency shelters, showing regional differences in the reception capacities.[1] In Berlin, for example, the former airport Tegel had been turned first into an emergency reception centre, housing up to 5,000 people in June 2024 under problematic living conditions.[2] Despite original plans to close this emergency centre by the end of 2025 and turn it into a regular reception centre under EU standards, the city announced in November 2025 that due to the lower number of arrivals it would partially stop plans to build a number of decentralised accommodations throughout the city, making the site a semi-permanent residency for some.[3] In Cologne, North Rhine Westfalia and Hamburg, exhibition grounds were temporarily used as emergency shelters.^[4] It is to be noted that one of the main factors for why emergency shelters are at the limits of their capacities is not the number of arrivals, but rather the lack of available long-term housing in the municipalities.[5] In fact, the number of people in initial reception centres has significantly decreased in several States in 2024, due to fewer new arrivals and changes in allocation policies across the states.[6] This trend continued in 2025, with a substantial drop of the number of people housed in initial reception centres, with some centres even being closed in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.[7]

The reception of asylum applicants and thus its financing is in general the responsibility of the municipalities. The Federal Government has generally supported the Federal States with the cost of the reception of asylum applicants over the last years. However, the issue of funding remains highly controversial. The Federal States argue that they do not receive enough, while the federal government believes it has already fulfilled its responsibilities.[8] In 2023, the Federal Government supported the municipalities with EUR 3.9 billion.[9] In 2024, the Federal Government and the Federal States agreed on a system change in the financing of refugee costs. The Federal Government now pays a fixed annual amount of €7,500 per first-time asylum applicant,[10] rather than the previous annual lump sum, amounting to EUR 1.8 billion in 2024 and 1.4 billion in 2025.[11]

Initial reception centres

Following the reform of June 2019, asylum applicants are generally obliged to stay in an initial reception centre for a period of up to 18 months after their application has been lodged (Aufnahmeeinrichtung).^[12] An obligation to stay in these centres for a maximum of 24 months can be imposed by Federal States since July 2017 (see Freedom of movement).^[13] Furthermore, asylum applicants from safe countries of origin are obliged to stay there for the whole duration of their procedures.

The Federal States are required to establish and maintain the initial reception centres.^[14] Accordingly, there is at least one such centre in each of Germany’s 16 Federal States with most Federal States having several initial reception facilities.

Initial reception centres are assigned to a branch office of the BAMF or combined with a branch office to constitute an arrival centre or AnkER centre. As of November 2025, out of 58 branch offices listed on the BAMF website 17 were integrated in arrival centres in 12 different Federal States, and 9 were part of AnkER centres in three Federal States.^[15]

Arrival centres

Since 2016, several reception centres have either been opened as arrival centres (Ankunftszentren) or existing facilities have been transformed into arrival centres. In these centres, the BAMF and other relevant authorities are grouped together and apply fast-track processing. The concept of ‘arrival centres’ is not established in law, therefore technically the initial reception centres are still functioning as part of the arrival centres, together with a branch office of the BAMF and other relevant authorities. As of November 2025, the BAMF lists 17 arrival centres which are located across 12 Federal States (down from 22 in 2018):^[16]

• Berlin
• Bremen
• Hamburg
• Baden-Württemberg: Heidelberg
• North Rhine-Westphalia: Bielefeld, Bonn, Mönchengladbach, Unna
• Saxony: Chemnitz, Leipzig
• Lower Saxony: Braunschweig, Bramsche
• Saxony-Anhalt: Halberstadt
• Hessen: Gießen
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Schwerin
• Thuringia: Suhl
• Rhineland-Palatinate: Trier

AnkER centres

At the conclusion of 2025, Germany counted a number of 9 AnkER centres in in Bavaria, Saxony and Saarland, alongside 17 BAMF branch offices (Außenstellen) located in arrival centres across 12 Federal States.^[17]  Due to the limited specificity of information provided by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), and given that online sources yield varying figures, it is not possible to provide a fully accurate current breakdown of the individual centres. Please see previous editions of this report for a detailed overview of the locations of the AnkER centres as they were documented at the time.

Since August 2018, Bavaria has established and/or rebranded all facilities run by the seven districts of the Federal State as AnkER centres.^[18] These included seven AnkER centres and a number of facilities attached thereto (Dependancen), the latter serving only for accommodation of asylum applicants to avoid overcrowding. All steps of the procedure are carried out in the main AnkER centres. In 2025, Bavaria opened a new AnkER centre in Munich, with a capacity of 900 places, out of which 450 were occupied by September.[19] However, as the BAMF did not classify this facility as a tenth AnkER centre, it is unclear whether it should be counted as such within this framework.

Dublin centres

In early 2025, Germany established its first Dublin centres for the expedited return of asylum applicants to other Dublin Member States.[20] The initial centre opened in Hamburg in February 2025 as part of a pilot project to accelerate Dublin procedures, followed by a second centre in Eisenhüttenstadt, Brandenburg. These centres are designed to accommodate individuals for whom another EU state is responsible under the Dublin Regulation, holding them temporarily and providing only limited benefits during this period. As of mid-2025, there are two operational Dublin centres, with capacities of several hundred places, although only 20 asylum applicants were housed in Eisenhüttenstadt in July 2025.[21] The establishment of these centres reflects efforts to speed up the return process, though actual transfers remain limited due to procedural and practical obstacles across the EU.[22]

 Collective accommodation centres

Once the Obligation to Stay in Initial Reception Centres ends, asylum applicants should, ‘as a rule’, be accommodated in ‘collective accommodation’ centres (Gemeinschaftsunterkünfte, GU).^[23] These accommodation centres are usually located within the same Federal State as the initial reception centre to which the asylum applicant was sent for the initial reception period. What exactly characterises shared accommodation is not defined. Some of these accommodation centres host 30, some several hundred people. Also, the quality of the facilities differs immensely. Some are simple but nicely designed new buildings with self-contained residential units, good traffic connection and a garden. Others are run-down buildings in which people without family ties have to share four- or five-bed rooms.[24]

According to the ‘geographical restriction’, asylum applicants are obliged to stay in the district to which they have been allocated for the whole duration of their procedure, including appeal proceedings (see Freedom of movement). The Federal States are entitled by law to organise the distribution and the accommodation of asylum applicants within their territories.^[25] In most cases, states have referred responsibility for accommodation following the initial reception period to municipalities. The responsible authorities can decide at their discretion whether the management of the centres is carried out by the local governments themselves or whether this task is transferred to NGOs or to facility management companies.

Decentralised accommodation

In 2024, the German Federal Statistical Office recorded the following numbers for accommodation of ‘recipients of benefits under the Asylum Seeker’s Benefits Act’. At the time of writing this report, statistics for 2025 were not yet available. It has to be noted that the Asylum Seeker’s Benefits Act, contrary to what its name indicates, applies not only to asylum applicants, but also to people with a ‘tolerated stay’ (Duldung) and even to certain groups of people who have been granted a temporary residence permit. Among these groups, there are many people who have been staying in Germany for several years and therefore are more likely to live in decentralised accommodation than asylum applicants whose application is still pending:

Source: Statistisches Bundesamt, ‚Empfängerinnen und Empfänger nach Bundesländern‘, accessed 23 November 2025, available in German here. This includes both asylum applicants and people with tolerated stay (Duldung).

Although Section 53 of the Asylum Act provides that asylum applicants ‘should, as a rule, be housed in collective accommodation’ following the initial reception period, the above figures show that policies vary considerably between the Federal States.^[26] In some states such as Bavaria, Hamburg or Hesse, most asylum applicants are indeed living in this type of accommodation. In contrast, there are other Federal States, including Rhineland-Palatinate, Lower Saxony or Schleswig-Holstein, in which the majority of recipients of asylum applicants’ benefits are staying in so-called ‘decentralised accommodation’, so usually in apartments of their own.^[27] The latter might also at least partially be the result of authorities generally being more restrictive when it comes to issuing (long-term) holders of a tolerated stay with residence permits, which would entitle them to regular social benefits.

[1] Vorkul, Timur, Wie überlastet sind die Kommunen? Vergleich von Ost und West, MDR, 30 August 2024, available in German here.

[2] Frauke Hunfeld, Alexander Kauschanski and Max Avdeev, “A Place of Chaos: Berlin’s Overcrowded Refugee Camp in Tegel” (DER SPIEGEL, 19 September 2024), available here.

[3] Christian Latz and Anna Thewalt, ‘Berlin stoppt vorerst Bau neuer Flüchtlingsunterkünfte: Senat will sich auf Tegel und Tempelhof konzentrieren’ (Tagesspiegel, 14 November 2025), available here; Susanne Memarnia, ‘Hauptsache, man sieht sie nicht’ (taz, 20 November 2025), available here.

^[4] NDR.de, Erste Flüchtlinge kommen in den Hamburger Messehallen unter, 16 October 2023 available in German at: https://bit.ly/3Uk2s79; WDR.de, NRW eröffnet Notunterkunft für Flüchtlinge in Kölner Messe, 17 November 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3SDw7WP.

[5] Vorkul, Timur, Wie überlastet sind die Kommunen? Vergleich von Ost und West, MDR, 30 August 2024, available in German here.

[6] Mehr Platz in Unterkünften‘ (Frankfurter Rundschau, 1 January 2025) available in German here.

[7] Lydia Jakobi, ‘Sinkende Asylzahlen: Erste Unterkünfte in Sachsen, Anhalt und Thüringen schließen’ (MDR Aktuell, 13 August 113), available here

[8] Tagesschau.de, Mit nackten Zahlen gegen die Länder, 03 May 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/49wE6f9.

[9] Unterrichtung durch die Bundesregierung, Finanzplan des Bundes 2023 bis 2027, 30 August 2024, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3vN1PsD.

[10] Was das Geld vom Bund für Flüchtlinge den Kommunen bringt‘ (mdr, 8 July 2024), available in German here.

[11] Deutscher Bundestag, Unterrichtung durch die Bundesregierung, Finanzplan des Bundes 2025 bis 2028 (Drucksache 21/601), 1 September 2025, available here.

^[12] Section 47(1) Asylum Act.

^[13] Section 47(1b) Asylum Act.

^[14] Section 44(1) Asylum Act.

^[15] BAMF, Locations, available at: https://bit.ly/3dFTd8w. The branch offices also include ‘regional offices’ responsible for integration measures, and regional branch offices working exclusively on Dublin cases. Some branch offices also have several locations, which are not included in the count.

^[16] BAMF, Locations, available at: https://bit.ly/2Z74Uko.

^[17] Information provided by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees on 13 February 2026.

^[18] Süddeutsche Zeitung, Das sind die sieben neuen Ankerzentren in Bayern, 1 August 2018, available at https://bit.ly/2MeAYKy.

[19] Ekaterina Kel, ‘”Echtzeitbetrieb” im neuen Ankerzentrum’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 September 2025), available here.

[20] Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat (BMI), ‘“Dublin centres” open in Hamburg and Eisenhüttenstadt’ (17 February 2025), available here.

[21] Lola Zeller, ‘Geflüchtete im Dublin-Zentrum: Bloß nicht zurück nach Polen’ (nd – aktuell, 3 July 2025), available here.

[22] Mediendienst Integration, Dublin Verordnung: Zahlen und Rechtslage (25 November 2025), available here.

^[23] Section 53 Asylum Act.

[24] Boris Kühn / Julian Schlicht, Mediendienst Integration, Kommunale Unterbringung von Geflüchteten – Probleme und Lösungsansätze, July 2023, available in German at: https://bit.ly/3SA0eiO.

^[25] Section 10 Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.

^[26] An analysis of these figures cannot be conclusive since it is complicated by apparent inconsistencies in the statistics. For example, it is unlikely that at a given date more than 10,000 asylum seekers were staying in the initial reception centres of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Apparently, other types of state-run accommodation were included in this figure as well.

^[27] It is possible, though, that some Federal States subsume smaller types of collective accommodation under ‘decentralised’ housing as well. Furthermore, some states seem to have changed their preferences compared to previous years, as the comparison to the figures of 2018 indicates (see AIDA, Country Report Germany – Update on the year 2019, July 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/4105BsU, 88-89).