Recognised refugees statistics in Greece: first half of 2025
Returns on the rise, long-standing barriers to integration unresolved
countries is increasing, despite long-standing legal and practical obstacles to dignified living conditions and their integration in the country. This is confirmed by the official statistical data provided in response to parliamentary questions for the first half of 2025, analysed in this Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) note.
According to Hellenic Police figures, the Greek authorities received readmission requests from other European countries for 3,279 beneficiaries of international protection in the first half of 2025. This figure almost equals the total number of requests submitted throughout 2024 (3,615). The vast majority of readmission requests in the first half of this year came from only two countries: Germany (1,516) and Switzerland (1,309).
Most readmission requests received by the Hellenic Police were accepted: 3,139 out of a total of 3,279.
The number of people actually returned to Greece under readmission procedures in the first half of 2025 alone reached 293, marking a significant increase on previous years. By way of comparison, a total of 390 people were returned throughout the whole 2024. These figures do not include cases of people voluntarily returning from other states to Greece.
Returns of recognised refugees from other states to Greece are on the rise, while long-standing legal and practical obstacles persist as regards people’s access to documents and basic socio-economic rights.
A key example remains the critical issue of protracted delays in the renewal of identification documents for beneficiaries of international protection, leaving large numbers of refugees in a precarious situation due to the lack of a valid Residence Permit (ADET) required for access to basic rights and services.
By the end of June 2025, the number of pending renewal applications for residence permits for refugees and subsidiary protection holders had reached 6,452, with the vast majority (6,312) falling under the dedicated Autonomous Asylum Unit (AAU) for Beneficiaries of International Protection of the Asylum Service.
More than 1,500 residence permit renewals have been pending for over a year. The data confirm the concerns we have consistently raised regarding the Asylum Service’s inability to process renewal applications within a reasonable timeframe. During these long waiting periods, beneficiaries are not regularly informed about the state of play of their cases, while the “certificates of asylum status” they can obtain from the Asylum Service upon request pending the completion of the process are not accepted by other authorities, as a rule.
As for travel documents, 1,052 renewal applications were pending at the end of the first half of 2025, almost all of them at the Asylum Service (1,022).
