Italy rejected 2,220 asylum applications submitted by Nigerians in 2025, while another 4,120 applications remained pending at the end of the year, according to a new report on the country’s asylum system.
The figures were contained in the 2025 Italy Country Report published by the Asylum Information Database (AIDA). The report was prepared by the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration, using data from Italian asylum authorities and the European Union Agency for Asylum.
According to the report, Italy received 3,385 asylum applications from Nigerians in 2025, making Nigeria the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to feature among the 10 largest nationalities of asylum seekers in the country.
Of the 3,390 decisions made on Nigerian asylum cases during the year, 660 applicants were granted full refugee status, representing a recognition rate of 19.47 per cent.
Another 55 Nigerians received subsidiary protection, while 460 were granted special protection under Italian law.
In total, 1,175 Nigerians were granted some form of protection, bringing the overall approval rate to 34.66 per cent. This was higher than Italy’s national protection rate of 30 per cent during the same period.
Despite the decline in asylum applications compared with 2024, Italy continued to face a considerable backlog of cases awaiting decisions.
The report stated that Italy registered 126,635 first-time asylum applications in 2025, down from 151,120 recorded in 2024. However, the figure remained almost twice the 77,200 applications registered in 2022.
It also noted that Italy’s overall protection rate at the first-instance stage, including special protection, stood at 30 per cent in 2025. This represented a decline from 35 per cent in 2024 and a more substantial drop from 47 per cent in 2022.
Among African countries, Egypt recorded the highest number of asylum applications in Italy, with 11,790 cases. Morocco followed with 9,485 applications, while Tunisia recorded 6,290.
The rejection rates for applicants from these three countries stood at 83.30 per cent for Egypt, 90.18 per cent for Morocco and 85.41 per cent for Tunisia.
The report also identified 16 unaccompanied Nigerian children among the minors who sought asylum in Italy in 2025.
The figures highlight the challenges facing asylum seekers in Italy, as thousands of applications remain unresolved and the likelihood of receiving protection varies among applicants from different countries.
