Overview of the main changes since the previous report update

Author

ASGI Visit Website

The previous report update was published in July 2024.

International protection

• State of emergency: The declaration of the State of Emergency due to numbers of migrants’ arrivals has been extended during 2024 and most recently in October 2024 until April 2025. The Regional Administrative Court of Lazio and then the Council of State rejected the appeal for access to the documentation justifying the declaration and extension of the state of emergency.

Asylum procedure

• Key asylum statistics: In 2024, 151,120 first asylum requests were registered in Italy, similar to 2023 when they were 136,836 but almost doubled compared to the 77,200 applications registered in 2022. In 2024, 78,565 first instance decisions were issued in Italy. Of these 6,000 (7%) were decisions granting a refugee status, 10,730 a subsidiary protection (13%) and 11,455 (14%) a national protection (protezione speciale).^[1] Overall, the recognition rate stood at 35.9%, a small decrease compared to 2023 when it was 37%, but a significant decrease compared to 2022 when it was 47%.^[2] Total final decisions issued in 2024 were 13,530, out of which 11,460 (84.7%) were positive decisions, while 2,070 (15.3%) were rejected. Most final decisions (10,095, 74.6% of the total) granted special protection to the applicant. The main nationalities of applicants in 2024 were Bangladesh, Peru, Pakistan, Egypt and Tunisia.
• Access to the asylum procedure: Law Decree n. 145 of 11 October 2024 established that asylum applicants who irregularly entered or stayed in Italy and submitted an application for international protection, without valid justification, beyond the period of 90 days from the entry, will be subject to accelerated procedure.^[3] Law Decree 145/2024 also amended Article 23 bis Procedure Decree introducing a rule that allows to consider the asylum application implicitly withdrawn when:

1. The applicant who has lodged the asylum application, before being called for the interview in front of the Territorial commission, leaves the reception facilities without a justifiable reason (without giving an actual address) or escapes from detention in hotspots or CPR facilities.
2. The applicant does not attend the personal interview scheduled by the Territorial Commission and the notification of the hearing is carried out in accordance with the rules regulating notifications (including that in the case of not reachable persons.

The law states that, in these cases, the Territorial Commission: 1) rejects the application if it deems it unfounded based on an adequate examination of the merits; or 2) suspends the exam when it believes it does not have sufficient evaluation elements. In this case, the applicant can request the reopening of the suspended proceedings only once within 9 months of the suspension. After this deadline, the proceeding is declared terminated. The application presented by the applicant following the rejection or termination of the implicitly withdrawn asylum application, is subjected to a preliminary examination of admissibility (pursuant to article 29, paragraph 1-bis Procedure Decree).

• Access to the territory: Italy’s migration management landscape underwent significant legislative and operational transformations during 2024-2025, reflecting intensified externalization policies and heightened border enforcement measures. The most notable development was the operationalization of the Italy-Albania Protocol in October 2024, establishing extraterritorial processing centres that faced immediate judicial challenges when Italian courts consistently refused to validate migrant detentions, citing European Court of Justice jurisprudence on safe country designations. Concurrently, Law 15/2023’s implementation continued to severely restrict NGO search and rescue operations, with systematic administrative detentions imposed on humanitarian vessels, though several courts suspended these measures as illegitimate. The reintroduction of border controls with Slovenia under Article 28 of the Schengen Border Code, initially justified by Middle Eastern security concerns but extended multiple times through June 2025, marked a significant shift toward internal border militarization. Additionally, the trilateral cooperation framework between Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia was formalized through a January 2025 Memorandum of Understanding, institutionalizing joint border patrols along the Balkan route while raising concerns about coordinated pushback operations and fundamental rights violations in the context of EU migration governance.
• Safe countries list: On 24 October 2024, the government issued DL 158/2024, which amended Article 2 bis of the Procedure decree to directly include the list of safe countries in the law. Some countries that were included in the previous list (i.e. Nigeria, Cameroon and Colombia), were deleted from the version that was introduced in the law. The list now includes: Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Morocco, Montenegro, Peru, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia. Following the CJEU decision of 4 October 2024 law no longer indicates that the designation of a safe country of origin can be done excluding some parts of the territory. However, it provides that the list of safe countries of origin can be done excluding some categories of persons.
• Dublin: In 2024, there were 7,926 total requests sent in the outgoing procedure, and 47 were the transfers, out of which: 3 for family procedure, 28 for humanitarian clause, Article 17(2), and 13 in the take back procedure. Regarding the incoming procedure, 24,217 requests (including both take charge and take back requests) were received by Italy, which marked a significant decrease when compared to the 35,563 incoming requests Italy received in 2023. The suspension of Dublin transfers due to the state of emergency continued throughout the year. This suspension did not totally affect the take charge procedure: 48 transfers were realised based on the family procedure and 68 based on the humanitarian clause (Article 17(2)).

Reception conditions

• Accommodation: The extension of the State of emergency allowed the derogation from the rules on calls for tenders for the assignment of the management of reception facilities and a wide use of direct awards.
• Access to reception conditions: Law 187/2024 introduced a priority criterion for access to reception facilities for people rescued at sea, making access to the reception of all other people (arrived by land, with autonomous disembarkations, Dublin return, etc.) subject to the availability of non-reserved places. The same law also introduced a hypothesis of exclusion from reception measures for those who, in the absence of justified reason, have entered Italy (irregularly) for more than 90 days without applying for international protection.
• Reception capacity: As of December 31, 2024, the reception facilities present in the country were divided among CAS (95,453), hotspots (461), government centres (3,724) and SAI (37,678). The capacity exceeded the number of asylum seekers present in the reception system. Despite this, many people were waiting for the assignment of the reception place. The Prefectures have shortened the time beneficiaries of international or national protection are allowed to remain in the reception system. Beneficiaries of a form of protection are now requested to leave accommodation a few days after receiving their status. In addition, onerous requests for reimbursement were sent for those who had exceeded the social allowance threshold (6,542.51 euros) for 2023 even slightly due to work income.

Detention of asylum seekers

• Changes to the legal framework on detention: The recent amendments set forth in Decree Law 145/2024 containing provisions on the management of migration flows and international protection, converted with amendments by Law 187/2024 and entered into force on 11 October 2024 and in the Decree-Law 37/2025, converted into Law 75/2025 of 23 May 2025 on urgent provisions to oppose irregular immigration, introduced important changes regarding detention.
• The competence of the Courts of Appeal instead of the Courts for validating the detention of asylum seekers: The recent amendment introduced by Article 16 of Decree-Law No. 145/2024, as amended by Law No. 187/2024, revoked the jurisdiction of the specialised sections of Courts on validations of the detention of applicants for international protection, including in cases of applicants subject to border procedures, applicants subject to Dublin procedures (by amending, respectively, arts. 6, 6-bis and 6-ter of Legislative Decree No. 142/2015) and asylum seekers subject to Dublin procedures (amending Arts. 142/2015 respectively) and asylum seekers who evade identification checks (Art. 10-ter of Legislative Decree 286/1998). In such cases, jurisdiction over the validations of detention orders is entrusted to the Court of Appeal, distorting and surpassing what was provided by Decree-Law 13/2017, converted into Law 46/2017, which had established specialised sections at the ordinary Courts of the place where the Courts of Appeal are located, with the aim of having magistrates with specific expertise.
• The Gjader CPR in Albania and the increase of new hotspots: With Decree-Law 37/2025, converted into Law 75/2025 of 23 May 2025, the Italian Government amended the law ratifying the Meloni – Rama Protocol (No. 37/2025 of 28 March), authorising the forced transfer to Albania of persons already detained in Italian CPRs, without any new validation by the Justice of the Peace. Over the last decade there has been a progressive weakening of the legal guarantees granted to migrants. However, the decision to allow the transfer to Albania of people already present on Italian territory and already detained in the CPRs represents a leap forward in migration policies, opening scenarios never seen before in the European context.

Content of international protection

• SAI network: As of 31 May 2025, the SAI network comprised 872 projects, 625 for adults (“ordinary” projects), 207 for unaccompanied minors and 40 for persons with mental distress or physical disabilities. The projects funded a total of 39,084 accommodation places. Of the SAI projects currently funded, 31,155 are ordinary places, 6,081 for unaccompanied minors, and 765 for people with mental distress or physical disabilities. By 31 May 2025, a total of 38,454 people are accommodated in this system.
• Long-term residence: In 2024, 4,456 beneficiaries of international protection obtained a long-term residence permit.
• Naturalisation: In 2024, 708 citizenships were granted to refugees.

Temporary protection

The information given hereafter constitutes a short summary of the annex on Temporary Protection to this report. For further information, see Annex on Temporary Protection.

Temporary protection procedure

• Key statistics on temporary protection: in 2024,16,885 permits for temporary protection were issued.
• Scope of temporary protection: The scope of TPD is not restricted compared to the Council Decision. However, people fleeing Ukraine are still required to show documentary evidence that they left the country after 24 February 2022 to access temporary protection. Temporary protection permits can currently be converted into work permits.

• Documentary evidence: The main issues concerning documentary evidence were still those related to the proof of having left Ukraine after 24 February 2022 (mainly by passport stamps).

• Information provision: On national territory and depending on the region or municipality, some organisations continued to provide information to people fleeing from Ukraine.

Content of temporary protection

• Residence permit: The validity of all the permits for temporary protection has been extended until 4 March 2026, but from 2024 the beneficiaries must send an application through the post office to renew the permit, and the extension is no longer automatic, as it was in previous years. In alternative, these permits are now convertible into work permits, if the beneficiaries meet the requirements provided by law.

^[1] Eurostat, First instance decisions, available here .

^[2] Eurostat, Asylum applicants by type – annual aggregated data, available here.

^[3] Article 15 quinquies LD 145/2024.