A strict shift in immigration policy in Germany in 2025: Asylum applications sharply decline and border controls tighten.
Germany's immigration policy underwent a significant transformation in 2025, characterized by tightened border controls, expanded checkpoints, and stricter asylum rules. A new conservative coalition took over the government in May, placing the tightening of immigration policy at the core of its promises. As the end of the year approached, official data for the period from January to November 2025 revealed a noticeable decline in asylum applications and clear changes in the processing mechanisms.
According to figures from the Federal Office, Germany received 106,298 initial asylum applications during this period, a decrease of 51% compared to 216,861 applications during the same period in 2024. Syrians and Afghans topped the list of applicants, with Syria recording 22,156 applications and Afghanistan 22,105 applications. Syrian applications decreased by about 70% compared to last year, partly due to the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 and the end of many years of civil war. Asylum applications from Turkey also fell by 60% to 11,274 applications.
Government data indicates that about 15% of applicants, or 16,579 cases, were for children under one year old born in Germany. In contrast, the number of subsequent asylum applications sharply increased, recording a rise of 162% to reach 51,138 applications. When combining initial and subsequent applications, the total number of asylum applications submitted in 2025 so far is 157,436, a decrease of 33.4% compared to the previous year.
By the end of November, the authorities issued decisions on 288,320 asylum cases, an increase of 2.5% compared to the same period in 2024. Afghans received the largest number of decisions, with an overall protection rate of 65.4%. In contrast, the protection rates were very low for Turks at 8% and for Syrians at only 1.6%. The overall protection rate for all nationalities was 27.2%, while 110,885 cases remained pending.
The processing time for asylum applications, including subsequent applications, averaged around 12.3 months. Syrians constituted nearly half of the unresolved cases, followed by Afghans and then Turks. Despite this backlog, the number of pending cases decreased by 7.7% compared to the previous month, indicating an improvement in the speed of case resolution. Among the unresolved cases, there are 3,294 classified as Dublin cases under the Dublin Regulation (a European law that designates the first country of entry into the EU as responsible for examining the asylum application), which may lead to the transfer of applicants to that country.
Family reunification laws also saw significant changes in 2025. New regulations issued in July halted reunification for individuals granted secondary protection for two years, which primarily affected Syrian refugees. However, Germany issued over 100,000 family reunification visas during the year, most of which were for wives and husbands, followed by children. Turks and Syrians topped the list of beneficiaries, followed by citizens from India, Kosovo, and Albania.
At the borders, security measures have intensified. The German broadcaster DW reported on December 21 that more than 1,600 people were prevented from entering the country after inspections were expanded, which granted authorities the power to reject most asylum seekers except for vulnerable groups. These measures aim to reduce irregular migration and limit secondary movement within the European Union, but they have faced criticism from neighboring countries like France, which argued that these steps violate the Schengen Agreement (the EU system for free movement without visas or internal borders).