Total number of applications decreases Confederation expects asylum numbers to fall again this year
The State Secretariat for Migration expects around 24,000 new asylum applications in 2025. This would be around 4,000 fewer applications than in 2024.
31.01.2025, 09:30
31.01.2025, 09:50
SDA
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Asylum applications are likely to fall further in 2025 compared to the previous year.
- This is according to a federal government statement.
- In the most likely scenario, the State Secretariat for Migration expects almost 15 percent fewer applications than in 2024.
The federal government expects the number of pending asylum applications to continue to fall significantly by the end of this year. It announced this on Wednesday.
According to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), there is a probability of around 60 percent that between 21,000 and 27,000 asylum applications will be submitted in the current year. If there are around 24,000 applications, that would be just under 4,000 applications or almost 15 percent fewer than in 2024, according to a statement from the authority on Friday.
A second scenario with a probability of occurrence of around 30 percent assumes that 27,000 to 37,000 applications will be submitted. A third scenario with a probability of around 10 percent anticipates 18,000 to 22,000 new asylum applications.
Reduction of the mountain of pending applications in sight
According to a provisional evaluation by the SEM, 27,740 asylum applications were submitted in Switzerland in 2024. This is 2,483 or around 8 percent fewer than in 2023 with 30,223 applications. According to the migration authority, the main reasons for the decline were the lower asylum migration of Turkish, Afghan and Syrian nationals to Western Europe and significantly fewer landings in southern Italy.
The SEM was able to reduce the number of pending asylum applications from around 16,000 to around 12,000 in 2024 despite the continued high number of new asylum applications, it added. Since 2022, around 300 additional full-time positions have been created to process asylum applications.
If the predicted further decline in the number of new asylum applications in 2025 materializes, the SEM will be able to further reduce the pending cases significantly. This means that all newly submitted applications should be processed in the course of 2026.
