Temporary protection for persons fleeing Ukraine - monthly statistics

Data extracted on 3 April 2025

Planned article update: 12 May 2025

Highlights

On 28 February 2025, slightly more than 4.3 million non-EU citizens, who fled Ukraine as a consequence of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, were under temporary protection in the EU.

At the end of February 2025, the ratio of temporary protection beneficiaries from Ukraine relative to the population was the highest in Czechia (36.5 per 1 000 people), ahead of Poland (27.2) and Latvia (26.2).

In February 2025, EU countries recorded the lowest monthly number of new decisions providing temporary protection (41 435) since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression.

Map showing non-EU citizens who fled Ukraine and were under temporary protection in the EU Member States and surrounding countries at the end of February 2025. Each country is classified based on the ratio per thousand people.

Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpsm) and (migr_asytpspop)

On 4 March 2022, the European Council unanimously adopted an implementing decision introducing temporary protection for people fleeing Ukraine as a consequence of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022. On 25 June 2024, the Council extended temporary protection until 4 March 2026. Temporary protection is an exceptional measure to provide immediate and temporary protection to displaced persons from non-EU countries and those unable to return to their country of origin. It applies when there is a risk that the standard asylum system will struggle to cope with demands stemming from a mass inflow, risking a negative impact on the processing of claims. This article presents the main developments for February 2025.

Where in the EU did people fleeing Ukraine go?

At the end of February 2025, the EU countries hosting the highest number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine were Germany (1 177 800 people; 27.3% of the EU total), Poland (994 790; 23.1%) and Czechia (397 750; 9.2%). The number of persons under temporary protection relative to the EU population was 9.6 per 1 000 people at the end of February 2025. Among the EU countries, the highest ratios were observed in Czechia (36.5 per 1 000 people), ahead of Poland (27.2) and Latvia (26.2).

Compared with the end of January 2025, the number of persons under temporary protection at the end of February increased by 21 015 across the EU (+0.5%). The largest absolute increases in the number of beneficiaries were observed in Germany (+7 550; +0.6%), Czechia (+2 765; +0.7%) and Spain (+1 885; +0.8%). The number of people under temporary protection decreased only in 2 EU countries, namely Austria (-430; -0.5%) and France (-410; -0.7%) .

Map 1: Non-EU citizens who fled Ukraine and were under temporary protection at the end of February 2025
Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpsm) (migr_asytpspop)

Interactive Figure 1 below shows for EU and EFTA countries the number of persons under temporary protection as well as the ratio per 1 000 people and the share in percentage of the EU total.

Figure 1

Who are the people fleeing Ukraine and receiving temporary protection?

98.4% of the people who fled Ukraine and were under temporary protection in the EU at the end of February 2025 were Ukrainian. Among other non-EU citizens under temporary protection, the main countries of citizenship were Russia (12 508; 0.3%), Nigeria (4 978; 0.1%) and Azerbaijan (4 277; 0.1%).

At the end of February 2025, adult women represented 44.7% of beneficiaries of temporary protection, 54.8% of them were women aged 35 to 64 years. Minors represented 31.8%, while the proportion of adult men in the total number of beneficiaries of temporary protection was 23.4%. The proportions of boys and girls under the age of 18 years were close, with 16.7% for boys and 15.1% for girls (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Structure by age and sex of beneficiaries of temporary protection in the EU, end of February 2025 (%)
Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpsm)

On a quarterly basis, the share of temporary protection decisions for minors decreased to 25.6% during Q4 2024, a drop of 5.5 percentage points (pp) from the 31.1% observed in Q3 2024 (Figure 3). This is equal to the level observed during Q2 2022, which marked the lowest quarterly proportion for minors since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression in February 2022. By contrast, the share of decisions granted to adult men (31.9%) and women (42.6%) in Q4 2024 increased respectively by 3.6 pp and 2.0 pp.

In February 2025, the monthly share of adult men among persons granted temporary protection was equal to 32.8%, a 0.6 pp increase compared with January 2025. During the same period, the share of adult women declined by 0.6 pp to 40.6%, whereas the proportion of minors slightly decreased by 0.6 pp to 26.6%.

Figure 3: Quarterly and monthly shares of main population groups among persons granted temporary protection (%)
Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpfm)

How many decisions on temporary protection were issued by EU countries and EFTA countries?

Since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression in February 2022, EU countries provided temporary protection to nearly 6.25 million persons having fled Ukraine. In 2024, the number of new decisions providing temporary protection decreased to 780 280 in the EU, a drop of 26.1% in comparison with 2023 (1 056 010 new decisions) (Table 1). The number of new decisions providing temporary protection declined in 22 EU countries in 2024, with the 3 largest absolute decreases being observed in Germany (-106 400; -31.7%), Poland (-71 710; -30.2%) and Ireland (-22 530; -68.2%). Only 5 EU countries issued more new decisions providing temporary protection in 2024 than in 2023, with the most notable increases recorded in Spain (+2 800; +8.3%), Denmark (+1 240; +14.2%) and Bulgaria (+985; +4.2%)

During Q4 2024, EU countries issued 172 240 new decisions providing temporary protection. This is the lowest quarterly number of new decisions recorded since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression in February 2022. Compared with Q3 2024, the number of new decisions during Q4 2024 decreased by 20.2%. A decline was observed during Q4 2024 in 25 EU countries, with the 3 largest absolute decreases being recorded in Poland (-14 730), Czechia (-7 330) and Italy (-3 845). Only 2 EU countries issued more decisions providing temporary protection during Q4 2024, namely Estonia (+130) and Portugal (+115).

In February 2025, 41 435 new decisions providing temporary protection in the EU were issued, marking a 18.8% drop from January 2025 and representing the lowest monthly number of new decisions recorded since the start of the Russian war of aggression. Among the 26 EU countries having provided data for February 2025, 21 EU countries issued less decisions in February compared with January 2025. The 3 largest decreases were seen in Czechia (-2 640), Poland (-2 505) and Germany (-1 610). Only 5 EU countries issued more decisions in February than in January 2025, with the 3 largest increases observed in Lithuania (+405), Cyprus (+235), and Italy (+175).

Table 1: Number of decisions on temporary protection in EU Member States and EFTA countries
Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpfm), (migr_asytpfq)

Where did unaccompanied minors fleeing Ukraine go?

Since March 2022, 22 EU countries and all EFTA countries provided data on unaccompanied minors fleeing from Ukraine.

Of the EU countries for which data are available, Austria (2 545), the Netherlands (1 835) and Lithuania (1 715) have granted the most temporary protection statuses, in absolute terms, to unaccompanied minors since March 2022 (Table 2). In relative terms, the highest share of unaccompanied minors in the total number of minors granted temporary protection was recorded in Croatia (13.5%) ahead of Denmark (7.5%) and Austria (6.1%) (Figure 4).

Table 2: Number of unaccompanied minors granted temporary protection
Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpfm), (migr_asytpfq)

Figure 4: Share of unaccompanied minors in the total number of minors granted temporary protection between March 2022 and February 2025 (%)
Source: Eurostat (migr_asytpfm), (migr_asytpfq), (migr_asyumtpfm), (migr_asyumtpfq)

Source data for tables and graphs

Temporary protection: tables and figures

Data sources

The data used for this publication are provided to Eurostat by the interior and justice ministries or immigration agencies of the EU Member States and EFTA countries. Data on temporary protection are collected monthly on a voluntary basis, whereas the quarterly number of decisions providing temporary protection is collected on a mandatory basis. They are based entirely on relevant administrative sources and supplied in accordance with the provisions of Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on community statistics on migration and international protection. Statistics on unaccompanied minors presented in the article refer to the age accepted by the national authorities, and generally before the age assessment procedure was carried out/completed due to the data reporting deadline.

Structures by age and by sex have been calculated based on available data while disregarding the unknown category.

Some data are unavailable. This is because the monthly data collection is carried out on a voluntary basis, so the completeness of the data may vary:

As a result of the delay in renewal of temporary protection statuses in Sweden in March 2023 and 2024, the total number of beneficiaries at the end of March, April, and May for both years is provisional and may be subject to revision.
Germany: data on decisions providing temporary protection and on number of beneficiaries at the end of the month are not available for March-July 2022. Delays in the registration of flows in Germany may lead to misalignment between flow and stock data.
France: in most cases, minors can stay in France without a permit. Therefore, minors are generally not included in statistics on temporary protection.
France, Italy and Iceland: unaccompanied minors fleeing Ukraine are benefitting from another protection scheme than the European temporary protection status.
Poland: unaccompanied minors arriving in Poland from Ukraine are already into the care of an adult designated by a Polish court before receiving temporary protection and then are considered as accompanied minors at that time.
Spain and Cyprus: the number of unaccompanied minors having been granted temporary protection in Spain and Cyprus is assumed to be equal to zero because of the few possible cases it represents and the high level of uncertainty related to the determination of their status.
Hungary: data on temporary protection broken down by age group are not available from March 2022 to December 2024.
Data on the number of persons under temporary protection at the end of the month until December 2022 (for the Netherlands), until January 2024 (for Bulgaria) and until June 2024 (for Germany) include some persons whose temporary protection status was no longer valid and are not comparable with data of the following reference periods.
Czechia: reported data for May 2024 covering the period from 1 May to 14 June.
Lithuania: large-scale deregistration of inactive statuses in October 2024 introduced a break in time series for the number of persons under temporary protection at the end of October 2024.
Italy: data on the number of persons under temporary protection for January and February 2025 are estimated based upon stocks recorded at the end of December 2024 and flows recorded in January and February 2025
Portugal: data are not available for January and February 2025.
EU totals for January and February 2025 calculated by using available Portuguese data for December 2024.

Due to the short timeline for the provision of data, figures presented may be subject to future revisions.

Context

In line with the ESS commitment to provide relevant and timely official statistics, Eurostat asked EU countries and EFTA countries to transmit voluntary monthly data within 1 month following the end of a reference period and for the first time by the end of April for the reference month March 2022 for the following data series within the framework of Eurostat data collections in the field of Asylum (Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007):

Decisions during the reference period granting temporary protection status by age, sex, citizenship and type of minor (flow data).
Beneficiaries of temporary protection at the end of the month by age, sex, citizenship and type of minor (stock data).

Temporary protection status and conditions of applications are defined by Council Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001 whereas the Council implementing decision (EU) 2022/382 of 4 March 2022 establishing the existence of a mass influx of displaced persons from Ukraine within the meaning of Article 5 of Directive 2001/55/EC is the first one with the effect of introducing temporary protection. These data are supplied to Eurostat by the national Ministries of Interior and related immigration agencies. Official statistics provided to Eurostat may differ from operational data collected under other collection frameworks in the Commission or by European or international agencies like European Union Asylum Agency (EUAA) or the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for various reasons including various definitions used, frequencies, deadlines for provision and quality requirements.

Explore further

Database

Temporary Protection, see:

Decisions granting temporary protection by citizenship, age and sex – quarterly data (migr_asytpfq)
Decisions granting temporary protection by citizenship, age and sex – monthly data (migr_asytpfm)
Beneficiaries of temporary protection at the end of the month by citizenship, age and sex – monthly data (migr_asytpsm)
Decisions granting temporary protection to unaccompanied minors by citizenship, age and sex – quarterly data (migr_asyumtpfq)
Decisions granting temporary protection to unaccompanied minors by citizenship, age and sex – monthly data (migr_asyumtpfm)
Unaccompanied minors benefiting from temporary protection at the end of the month by citizenship, age and sex – monthly data (migr_asyumtpsm)

Thematic section

Statistics on the impact of the war in Ukraine

Publications

Selected datasets