The number of asylum seekers in Albania will double in 2023, but those leaving the country will also increase compared to 2022

The number of asylum seekers in Albania doubled last year. Likewise, the number of those who have left Albanian citizenship has increased by 20 percent in 2023 compared to 2022.

According to INSTAT referring to the Department of Border and Migration, under the General Directorate of the State Police, in 2023, there will be 261 asylum seekers, marking an increase compared to the previous year, where we had 125 asylum seekers.

Asylum seekers originating from Afghanistan account for 61.7% of the total number of asylum seekers and amount to 161 people.

Asylum seekers in Albania

Analyzing the country of origin of asylum seekers, it is observed that the highest number of asylum seekers originate from Afghanistan with 161 asylum seekers, followed by 38 asylum seekers from Syria and 25 asylum seekers from Iraq.

During the year 2023, there are 14 positive decisions for granting supplementary protection status to asylum seekers, of these cases 5 belong to citizens originating from Iraq, 4 belong to citizens originating from Afghanistan and the rest belong to citizens from Syria and Palestine.

Looking at the requests for asylum by month, the months with the most applications were March, September and October, which account for 46.0% of the total applications.

Gaining and leaving Albanian citizenship

In 2023, there are 1,382 people who have acquired Albanian citizenship, marking a decrease of 9.5%, compared to 2022. If we analyze the data by gender, we notice that 796 are men and 586 are women.

In 2023, there are 870 people who renounced their Albanian citizenship, marking an increase of 20.7%, compared to 2022. From these data, a dominance of women is observed with 53.2% against 46.8% of men who have renounced Albanian citizenship.

Analyzing the country of origin of the persons who have acquired Albanian citizenship, it is observed that 74.7% originate from Kosovo, 7.2% originate from Turkey and 4.1% originate from Syria.

During 2023, 30.3% of people who have acquired Albanian citizenship belong to the age group of 30-39 years, followed by the age group of 40-49 years and 20-29 years, respectively with 24.0% and 16.2 %.

For people who have left Albanian citizenship, the dominant age group is 30-39 years old with 45.2%, followed by the age group 20-29 years old and 40-49 years old with 20.7% and 19.5% respectively .

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