At least 1,917 Nigerians applied for asylum in the Netherlands in 2024 and 2025, according to the latest data obtained by Sunday PUNCH from the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service.

The figures are drawn from the Asylum Information Database’s Netherlands country reports for 2024 and 2025, compiled for the AIDA project by the Dutch Council for Refugees, VluchtelingenWerk Nederland, and published by the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service, also known as the IND, and Eurostat.

According to the report, Nigeria is one of only four African nationalities to rank among the Dutch government’s top 10 countries of origin for asylum applicants in both years.

Sunday PUNCH observed that applications from Nigerians rose year-on-year.

In 2024, 931 Nigerians applied for asylum, comprising 770 first-time applicants and 161 subsequent applicants, according to the AIDA-NL 2024 Update.

Applications climbed to 986 in 2025, comprising 813 first-time applicants and 173 subsequent applicants, a rise of 5.9 per cent, according to the AIDA-NL 2025 Update.

The reports, however, revealed that the numbers didn’t encompass family reunification, meaning the true number of Nigerians who joined family in the Netherlands over the period is not captured in the asylum figures.

Globally, Nigeria ranked ninth among the top 10 nationalities of asylum applicants in 2024, alongside Syria (11,655), Iraq (2,306), Türkiye (1,905), Eritrea (1,506), an “Unknown” nationality category of 1,437 applications, Algeria (1,216), Somalia (1,119) and Yemen (1,089), and Iran (742).

In 2025, applications from Nigerians moved up to sixth position among the identified nationalities, including Syria (3,373), Eritrea (3,178), Türkiye (1,530), Algeria (1,454) and Somalia (1,384), and ahead of Afghanistan (803), Sudan (796) and Pakistan (689).

Among African nationalities, Eritreans filed the highest number of applications in both years combined, totalling 4,684 applicants.

Algeria followed with 2,670, Somalia with 2,503, and Nigeria with 1,917.

The Republic of Sudan appeared only in the 2025 top 10, with 796 applicants, as its 2024 applications were lumped into the “Others” category.

Together, the four to five African nationalities identified in the two reports accounted for at least 12,570 applications out of the Netherlands’ combined total of 59,599 asylum applicants over the two years, or about 21.1 per cent.

On application outcomes, the decisions table showed that Nigeria received 515 first-instance decisions in 2025, of which 425, or 83 per cent, were rejections.

Only 65 applicants, or 13 per cent, were granted refugee status. Ten, or 2 per cent, received subsidiary protection, and 15, or 3 per cent, received humanitarian protection, a derived status typically granted to family members of a recognised refugee.

Meanwhile, the overall rejection rate across all nationalities in 2025 stood at 52 per cent, against a 48 per cent overall protection rate. Nigeria’s rejection and acceptance rates stood at 83 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively. Comparable disaggregated decision data for Nigeria was not published for 2024, as Nigeria did not rank among that year’s top 10 nationalities by decisions.

Also, Nigeria was not among the countries the Dutch government had designated a “safe country of origin,” a status that enables a fast-track rejection procedure, up until it was suspended nationwide in September 2025 following rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Countries on the “safe country of origin” list include Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia, among others.

According to the report, a Nigerian was involved in one of only two cases nationwide in which the Dutch government had invoked the “first country of asylum” concept, where an applicant is presumed to already have protection in a third country.

It read, “In 2025, only two cases of application of the first country of asylum were dealt with by a Dutch court. The cases concerned Nigeria and the West Bank as the first country of asylum. Both cases were dismissed by the Court, as it was unclear whether the applicants could be admitted to these countries.”

In April 2026, the Dutch parliament passed a bill introducing a “two-status system,” distinguishing between refugees and holders of subsidiary protection status. The bill stipulates that holders of subsidiary protection status will face a longer waiting time, an income requirement, and a housing requirement before qualifying for family reunification. (Sunday PUNCH)

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