Overview of the main changes since the previous report update

Author

Accem Visit Website

The last version of this report was updated in April 2024.

International protection

• Key asylum statistics: A total of 167,366 persons applied for international protection in Spain in 2024. A total of 164,010 were first time applicants, while 2,140 were subsequent applicants.[1] Venezuela, Colombia, Mali, Peru, and Senegal were the top five nationalities of applicants. Among them, 57.70% were men, while 42.29% were women. As regards decision making at first instance, a total of 38,686 applications were rejected, while refugee status was granted to 6,355 persons, subsidiary protection to 11,453 persons and 33,535 were granted protection for humanitarian reasons. The recognition rate for international protection remained low, with only around 19.78% of cases being recognised refugee status or subsidiary protection. It should however be highlighted that the overall recognition rate reaches almost the 57% if decisions granting humanitarian protection are taken into account. The top 5 countries of persons granted any form of international protection (refugee status and subsidiary protection) in 2024 were Mali, Syria, Nicaragua, Somalia, and Afghanistan. At the end of the year, 133,102 applications were still pending at first instance.

Asylum procedure

• Access to territory and pushbacks: In 2024, 63,970 migrants reached Spain by land and sea, which represents an increase of 7.1% compared to 56,852 arrivals in 2023. The vast majority of arrivals were by sea (61,323) and the main route for sea arrivals were the Canary Islands: 46,843 persons arrived by sea on the archipelago.
• Situation on the Canary Islands and in the Mediterranean: The NGO Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) estimates that 10,457 persons died while reaching Spain in 2024, including 9,557 who lost their life on the Canary route. It further reported that 421 of victims were women, 1,538 were children, and that a total of 131 vessels disappeared with those 10,457 persons on board. The persons who died belonged to 28 different nationalities.
• Delays in the appointments for registering the asylum application: During 2024, asylum seekers continued to face many challenges and long waiting times to obtain an appointment to express their intention to apply for asylum, and to formalise the application, mainly due to a lack of appropriate resources. This situation led to gatherings of asylum seekers in different cities to protest, as well as to a joint claim lodged by around 100 asylum seekers and 20 NGOs in front of the Spanish Ombudsperson.

Reception conditions

• Challenges in the reception of unaccompanied minors (UAMs) in the Canary Islands: During 2024, the Government of the Canary Islands reiterated its calls to the central Government to ensure proper responsibility-sharing with other Autonomous Communities in the reception of and assistance to UAMs arrived in the archipelago. The Spanish Ombudsperson advocated for supporting the Canary Islands and called the Government to change the legislation in order to make the distribution of UAMs among Autonomous Communities compulsory. The State-Secretary for Migration called for an agreement between the central Government and the Autonomous Communities for the distribution of 6,000 UAMs that cannot be assisted by the Canary Islands because the system is overwhelmed (its hosting capacity if for a maximum of 2,000 unaccompanied minors). Similarly, UNHCR, Save the Children and the Spanish Ombudsperson called for the solidarity-sharing among the Autonomous Communities for the proper protection of UAMs. The Spanish Ombudsperson also urged the Government of the Canary Islands to open new facilities for the reception of UAMs. After months of negotiations, the central Government presented its plan for the distribution of 2,500 to UAMs to other Autonomous Communities to the Government of the Canary Islands. The Plan was agreed upon by the two Governments and was also welcomed by NGOs. Unfortunately, the Plan prepared by the central Government for the compulsory distribution of UAMs from the Canary Islands to the other Autonomous Communities was not approved by the Congress in July, due to the contrary votes of the Popular Party, Vox and Junts.

Detention of asylum seekers

• Poor living conditions and overcrowding at the Madrid Barajas Airport: In August 2024, the asylum rooms at the Madrid Airport continued to face situations of overcrowding, due to the increase of persons (mainly Mauritanian nationals) applying for asylum while transiting in Spain during their travel to South America. The Spanish Confederation of the National Police reported an increase of asylum applicants up to 350% since June 2024. The Bar Association of Madrid warned the Minister of Interior about the serious structural deficiencies (i.e. the lack of qualified interpreters, the overloading of the police professionals, the lack of basic tools such as the asylum forms, etc.), which rendered it impossible to guarantee proper legal assistance.

Content of international protection

• Access to rights: Asylum seekers, migrants and refugees continued to face challenges in accessing rights, especially housing, employment, and financial services, partially due to discriminatory practices. Unaccompanied migrant children and LGTBIQ+ persons continued to face social discrimination.
• Regularisation of undocumented migrants: In November 2024, the Government adopted a new Regulation of the Immigration Law, officially aimed at improving the integration of migrants according to three main paths for regularisation: work, training and family ties. The reform will enter into force 6 months after its publication, and it aims at regularising 300,000 persons. In addition, it simplifies the requirements for third-country nationals to obtain residence and work permits, and establishes stricter rules for the regularisation of asylum seekers whose application was rejected, by establishing that the period they have been in Spain as asylum applicants will not count for the issuing of the residence permit for ‘arraigo’, and that just the period after the denial of the asylum application will be taken into account. While welcoming the new reform, different organisations (i.e. Accem, CEAR, APDHA, Caritas, the Spanish Bar Association, etc.) observed that the reform could have had more significant impact and there were several missed opportunities; for example, humanitarian visas allowing people in need of international protection to apply for asylum without entering irregularly in Spain could have been introduced, or the possibility for asylum seekers to regularise their situation while still waiting for the asylum decision could have been granted. In addition, despite the adoption of the new Regulation of the Immigration Law, the NGO CEAR called the Government to continue in the assessment and adoption of the legislative initiative on regularisation, which proposal is undergoing the parliamentary procedure. In January 2025, different NGOs challenged the reform of the Regulation of Immigration Law in front of the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo), specifically the provisions establishing the incompatibility between the international protection procedure and the procedure for the residence permits based on ‘arraigo’. The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration informed about the intention of meeting those NGOs which challenged the Regulation, with the aim of clarifying doubts and make possible corrections to the Regulation’s provisions, before its entering into force in May 2025.

Temporary protection

The information given hereafter constitutes a short summary of the Spain Report on Temporary

Protection, for further information, see Annex on Temporary Protection.

Temporary protection procedure

• Key statistics on temporary protection: In 2024, the Asylum Office granted temporary protection to 36,704 persons fleeing from Ukraine. Since the outbreak of the war until the end of February 2025, Spain has granted temporary protection to 236,570 persons fleeing from Ukraine.
• Information provision: In October 2024, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration launched a phone service (number +34 913990009) to inform about international and temporary protection. The service is provided by eight persons, and the information is given in eight languages: Spanish, English, French, Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Farsi and Bambara.

Content of temporary protection

• Extension of validity: An order issued in February 2025 extended the validity of residence permits granted to beneficiaries of temporary protection until 4 March 202
• Residence permits: The permits granted until 31 December 2024 were 219,788. 59% of beneficiaries were women and 41% men.
• Access to job market: According to available data, 28,197 beneficiaries of temporary protection were working as of 31 December 2024 mainly in the following labour sectors: hospitality (4,680 persons), construction (4,605 persons), commercial sector (3,088 persons), and information and communication (2,862). The majority of these workers counted with full-time and indefinite contract.
• Access to education: A report published by the MISSM indicates that, since the outbreak of the war until 31 December 2024, 39,741 children fleeing from Ukraine accessed schooling. Among them, about 5,500 children are enrolled in early education, 15,500 in primary education, 9,500 in secondary education, and more than 8,000 in vocational training courses and in Spanish classes. Regarding the university context, 1,800 students are enrolled in degrees, master and PhD courses.
• Funding: Since the outbreak of the war, Spain has allocated more than €1,530 millions to support persons fleeing from Ukraine.

^{[1] Eurostat, ‘Asylum applicants by type, citizenship, age and sex – annual aggregated data’, 20 March 2025, available here.}