How many rejected asylum seekers are in Italy and how is the italian government preparing for the new July 2026 rules?
Executive summary
Official data show relatively few final rejections recorded in 2024—2,070 final negative asylum decisions that year—while Italy continued to carry a large backlog of pending applications and a sizable reception system; reporting does not provide a single authoritative count of how many people currently in Italy are formally “rejected asylum seekers” and still present in the territory (rather than returned or appealed) [1] [2]. The government has already enacted legal and administrative changes—most notably Law 187/2024 and extended emergency measures—that reshape reception, eligibility and permit renewal in ways that appear aimed at implementing and making operational new EU-level rules expected to take effect in July 2026, though publicly available sources describe policy changes and commitments more than a detailed operational “playbook” for July 2026 [3] [2] [4].
1. How many final rejections were recorded recently — small absolute numbers but a big system context
Eurostat-derived reporting compiled by the Asylum Information Database (AIDA/ECRE) and ISMU shows that total final decisions issued in 2024 amounted to 13,530, of which 2,070 (15.3%) were rejected final decisions — a clear, published count of negative final rulings in that year, but not a census of all rejected people residing in Italy at any given moment [1] [3]. Other reporting highlights that Italy registered some 151,120 first asylum requests in 2024, and that the overall recognition rate at first instance was 35.9%, so the system is processing many more applicants than were finally decided in 2024 — meaning year-to-year decision totals alone understate the number of persons with unresolved or negative outcomes present in Italy [3] [2]. Eurostat snapshots also show Italy carried one of the EU’s largest stocks of pending cases in 2025, underscoring that the population of people affected by rejections, appeals and temporary statuses is dispersed across pending decisions, final decisions, and reception facilities rather than concentrated in a single, publicly listed “rejected” cohort [5].
2. Why a single “rejected asylum seekers in Italy” figure is not available in the sources
The reporting distinguishes between first-instance decisions, final decisions, pending applications and reception placements, and does not publish an across-the-board tally of people who have exhausted appeals and remain in Italy after a negative final decision [1] [2]. Reception capacity data — for example CAS, hotspots, government centres and SAI capacities reported as of end-2024 — and changes to eligibility rules (see below) give a partial picture of who remains in the system, but do not map cleanly to “rejected” status because many rejected people may be out of reception, appealing, subject to deportation orders, or irregularly present [3]. AIDA explicitly relies on Eurostat and national practice to compile statistics, meaning public sources provide decision counts and reception numbers but not a validated point-in-time count of all rejected-but-present people [4] [1].
3. How the Italian government has already re-shaped policy ahead of July 2026
Italian national law changes and emergency measures in 2024–2025 show practical preparation: Law 187/2024 introduced grounds to exclude people from reception who entered irregularly and failed to apply for protection within 90 days, prioritised sea arrivals for reception, and altered permit renewal procedures [3] [2]. Temporary protection permits’ validity was extended until March 4, 2026, but renewals from 2024 require individual postal applications or conversion into work permits under set conditions — procedural shifts that reduce automatic statuses and appear calibrated to tighter EU-level governance coming into force [3].
4. Operational posture, offshore processing and international commitments
The government has also pursued offshore and externalisation approaches: the coalition’s moves to outsource processing and to negotiate schemes with third countries (for example an arrangement involving Albania) and resettlement commitments (including pledges to resettle people from Libya) are documented in human rights reporting and have influenced how Italy plans to handle arrivals and returns, even as some deals encountered judicial or operational setbacks [6] [2]. AIDA and Human Rights Watch reporting make clear that these are active components of Italy’s practical response architecture rather than solely future contingencies [4] [6].
5. What remains uncertain and where the evidence gaps are
Public reporting provides robust counts of applications, first-instance recognition rates, and reception capacities, but does not provide a definitive headcount of people with exhausted appeals who currently remain in Italy after a final negative decision — an important data gap when asking “how many rejected asylum seekers are in Italy” [1] [2]. Similarly, while legal changes and emergency measures demonstrate preparation for the July 2026 EU rules, the sources document policy shifts and commitments rather than a granular operational plan for implementation at the national or local level, leaving open questions about how returns, reception exclusions and case processing will be operationalised in practice [3] [4].