The number of asylum seekers in Europe has increased in recent years with a particularly large increase in 2015.

The main source of data covering Europe as a whole is the Eurostat database. Eurostat depends on statistics supplied by the equivalent of the Home Office in each country. The countries covered are the EU28, plus Norway and Switzerland.

This briefing reveals the total number of first time applications in each year since 2008 as reported by Eurostat. It also provides data for the number of asylum applications in the UK for this period, and the top ten countries for first time applications in 2015.

Statistics also reveal countries of origin in 2014/15, and decisions on asylum applications by EU countries.