The Dutch immigration service IND rejected 56% more asylum requests last year than in 2024, national statistics agency CBS said on Monday.

In total, officials approved 7,400 requests in 2025 and rejected 8,100. They also assessed 5,600 fewer requests in 2025 than in 2024, despite efforts to speed up the process.

The biggest drop was in successful applications for asylum on personal protection grounds – refugee status for people who face a serious personal risk if they are forced to return to their country of origin. Some 2,900 people were granted asylum on that basis last year, down 7,000 on a year earlier.

The main reason for the fall in successful asylum applications was a change in the official approach to Syria. At the end of 2024, the Netherlands stopped processing claims from Syrian asylum seekers following the regime change.

In total, just 390 claims by Syrians were assessed in 2025, and 28% were approved. In 2024, there were 10,700 applications and 95% were given the green light.

Meanwhile, four women who were due to be deported to Afghanistan because the IND considered they could adapt to life under the Taliban have been given the right to remain in the Netherlands after all.

In total, 24,070 people applied for refugee status in the Netherlands for the first time last year, 8,000 fewer than in 2024, according to the 2025 IND figures.

The IND had to pay €79 million in compensation to asylum seekers last year after taking more than the legal time to complete assessing their applications. The figure is more than double the 2024 total.

Asylum seekers can go to court for compensation if assessing their case takes longer than six months. The average time now taken has stretched to more than a year.

At the end of 2025, some 51,000 people were still waiting for their claims to be assessed and the target is unlikely to be met this year either, the IND said.