The Netherlands’ weekly asylum registration rate has dropped below 600 for the first time in 2026, based on figures from the nation’s asylum ministry. That rate was still at about 1,000 at the same time a year ago.
The decline in asylum cases, according to Dutch authorities, is primarily caused by fewer new family reunification applications being submitted.
Among Syrian asylum seekers in the Netherlands, the change is especially noticeable: According to the ministry, there were about 40,000 new arrivals from Syria annually between 2022 and 2024.
However, amid hopes for peace and the nation’s reconstruction, new applications have decreased since long-term dictator Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime fell.
As a result of family members of Syrians who had already been granted protection being brought over from the Middle Eastern country rather than submitting new applications for family reunifications, the total number of people arriving from Syria stayed relatively constant throughout 2025.
In fact, a record 16,500 close relatives of refugees and asylum seekers arrived in the Netherlands in 2025 due to pending family reunification applications, a sharp increase of nearly 40% over 2024. According to the Dutch statistics agency CBS, approximately 75% of those arrivals were Syrian nationals.
In the meantime, the EU asylum agency (EUAA) confirmed that there were fewer overall arrivals due to recent political stability in both Venezuela and Syria.
Even though the number of asylum seekers is decreasing, anti-immigrant sentiments are still widespread in the Netherlands, where there have been numerous incidents of riots, protests, and even acts of violence against foreigners.