decrease at first instance, and 91% at second. The new JMD was again challenged before the
Council of State by GCR and RSA in June 2025, with the decision pending, following a hearing
on 4 November 2025.
❖ Syria: Following the fall of the Assad regime, the Asylum Service suspended decisions for Syrian
nationals to reassess country of origin information, leading to the first-ever substantive in-merit
rejections of international protection for Syrian applicants in 2025.
❖ Second instance procedures: Most appeals continued to be rejected, with recognition rates at
second instance standing at 6.5% in 2025. A December 2024 CoS ruling declaring the singlemember composition of Independent Appeals Committees unconstitutional was made public in
June 2025. Formalistic rejections remained an issue of concern, with close to half of the 3,502
appeals that were dismissed as inadmissible, being rejected on account of late submission.
❖ Restriction of Safeguards: In August 2025, JMD 147627/2025 entered into force, severely
rolling back procedural safeguards for unaccompanied minors. The new framework mandates
that all age-assessment phases (physical, psychosocial, and X-ray) must occur within a single
day, while explicitly giving primacy to radiological findings over holistic evaluations. The JMD
further slashes the appeal deadline from 15 down to just 5 days, while introducing an automatic,
even if rebuttable, presumption of adulthood if a child refuses to undergo intrusive medical
checks.
Reception conditions
❖ Statistics: The Reception and Identification Service (RIS) registered a total of 50,840 persons
during 2025, the majority of whom men (39,903) and women (10,937), primarily between the ages
of 18 to 34. Slightly more than 1 in 5 of those registered were minors, most of whom 13 years old
and younger (6,214), while close to 1 in 3 of those registered, were registered as vulnerable
(15,345). Main registered vulnerabilities concerned victims of torture (7,222), unaccompanied
minors (2,713), and single-parent families with minors (2,454), with main nationalities comprising
of Afghanistan (13,471), Sudan (8,641) and Egypt (7,837).
❖ Systemic Access Gaps: Delays in accessing reception persisted throughout 2025, driven by
chronic, structural blockages in accessing the asylum procedure on the mainland. Individuals
attempting to secure registration appointments via the Ministry’s online platform were left in a
protracted state of legal limbo, without access to material reception conditions. In flagrant
disregard of multiple national Court Rulings, the Ministry continued to systematically deny these
individuals the formal status of asylum applicants during the waiting period.
Detention of asylum seekers
❖ Detention statistics: A total of 22,520 detention orders were issued during 2025, following a
removal decision (17.6% increase compared to 2024). In addition, 3,280 asylum seekers have
been detained in pre-removal detention centers (PRDCs) during the year (decrease of 36.5%
compared to 2024). The number of third country nationals under administrative detention at year’s
end stood at 2,586, with 1 in 3 (32.5%) detainees being an asylum applicant. A total of 431 UAM
were detained (‘hosted’ according to the information provided by the Police) in PRDCs during
2025.
❖ Detention without reasonable prospect of return: the practice continued throughout the year.
Indicatively, 4,330 detention orders for the purpose of removal were issued against Afghan
nationals during the year, with roughly 300 Afghans remaining in detention at year’s end, even
though the Hellenic police expressly confirmed that returns to Afghanistan do not take place since
2021, while readmissions under the EU-Türkiye Statement remain suspended since 2020.
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