Brussels – Almost every fourth initial asylum application in the EU came from minors in 2025. Around 158,400 of those seeking protection last year were under 18 years old – this corresponds to 23.7 percent of all initial applications, according to data from the EU statistics office Eurostat. The proportion is particularly high in Austria (57.3 percent) and Germany (44.9 percent). Among first-time minor applicants in the EU, around 13 percent were unaccompanied minors.
