For the first time in 2026, the number of people registering for asylum has fallen below 600 per week in the Netherlands. That's according to figures from the country's asylum ministry. At the same time a year ago, that rate still stood at around 1,000.
Authorities in the Netherlands believe that the fall in asylum cases is mainly linked to fewer instances of new family reunification applications being filed.
In the past two weeks, there were only around 115 weekly arrivals for close family members of asylum seekers — compared to around 300 a year ago.
The shift is particularly notable among Syrian asylum seekers in the Netherlands: From 2022 to 2024, the rate of new arrivals from Syria stood at roughly 40,000 per year, the ministry said.
However, since the fall of the authoritarian regime of long-term strongman Bashar Assad, new applications fell amid hopes for peace and the country's reconstruction.
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Fewer new family reunions but many existing cases
Meanwhile, the overall number of people arriving from Syria roughly remained the same throughout 2025, since instead of filing new applications for family reunifications, family members of Syrians who had already been granted protection were brought over from the Middle Eastern nation.
In fact, 2025 saw a record number of arrivals on account of existing family reunification applications, with about 16,500 close family members of refugees and asylum seekers coming to the Netherlands that year, marking a steep rise by almost 40 percent compared to 2024.
The majority of those arrivals — about 75 percent — were Syrian nationals, according to the Dutch statistics agency CBS.
Meanwhile, the EU asylum agency (EUAA) confirmed that with more political stability in both Syria and Venezuela in recent times, there were fewer overall arrivals.
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EU pact likely to have an impact on trends
It is likely that the rate of family reunifications is going to continue to drop: In June, the rules for family reunifications were considerably tightened in the Netherlands, as the EU's new migration and asylum pact came into force.
New statistics regarding the extent to which applications for family reunifications may have been impacted by this major legislative change in the first few months of its implementation are, however, not yet available.
Nor has the Dutch asylum ministry made any statements on what trends and reasons may be behind the overall drop of fresh asylum applications from new arrivals.
The latest numbers made available by the ministry only reflect trends prior to the introduction of the EU-wide pact.
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However, with asylum applications falling steadily across the European Union since the launch of the pact, it is likely that the drop is indeed linked to these changes, according to the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant.
The only major change noted by CBS is the fact that the number of asylum seekers from Eritrea has rapidly been rising, doubling from only 1,500 applications in 2024 to more than 3,100 in 2025 — making them the largest group of people seeking protection in the Netherlands after Syrians.
Despite asylum numbers being on the decline, anti-migrant sentiments remain rife across the Netherlands, with many instances of riots, protests and even violence perpetrated against foreign nationals.
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