1,917 Nigerians sought Netherlands asylum in two years – Report

In 2024 and 2025, Nigerian nationals filed a total of 1,917 asylum applications in the Netherlands, according to recent data from the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service. This places Nigeria among the top four African nationalities with the highest number of asylum seekers in the Netherlands for both years. The Dutch Council for Refugees and VluchtelingenWerk Nederland compiled the figures from the Asylum Information Database's country reports for 2024 and 2025.

The reports indicate that Nigerian applications increased by 5.9 percent from 2024 (931 applications) to 2025 (986 applications). However, the figures do not include family reunification, meaning the true number of Nigerians who moved to the Netherlands may be higher. Globally, Nigeria ranked sixth in the top 10 nationalities of asylum applicants in 2025, behind Syria, Eritrea, Türkiye, and Algeria.

Among African nationalities, Eritreans filed the most applications, totaling 4,684, followed by Algeria with 2,670, Somalia with 2,503, and Nigeria with 1,917. The decisions table shows that Nigeria received 515 first-instance decisions in 2025, with 425 rejections (83 percent) and 65 grants of refugee status (13 percent). Only 2 percent (15) received subsidiary protection, and 3 percent (15) received humanitarian protection.