|Published on: 30th July 2025|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on Italy provides a detailed overview on legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2024. It is accompanied by an annex which provides an overview of temporary protection.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the update on 2023 are set out below.
(A) International protection
- Extended state of emergency: The state of emergency that was declared due to the number of arrivals remained in force throughout 2024 and was extended again in October. Requests for access to the documentation justifying the declaration were rejected by the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio and the Council of State.
Asylum procedure
- Asylum statistics: 151,120 first asylum requests were registered in 2024. This is similar to the previous year but almost double the number in 2022. A total of 78,565 first instance decisions were issued in 2024 and the overall recognition rate, including national forms of protection, was 35.9%. Of the decisions made in 2024, 7% resulted in the granting of refugee status, 13% in subsidiary protection and 14% in special protection. There were also 13,530 final decisions of which 84.7% were positive and mostly resulted in special rather than international protection. The main countries of origin of asylum applicants in 2024 were Bangladesh, Peru, Pakistan, Egypt and Tunisia.
- Accelerated and implicit withdrawal procedures: Decree Law 145/2024 introduced an accelerated procedure for applicants who entered Italy irregularly or stayed in the country for more than 90 days without justification. It also expanded the grounds for considering applications to be implicitly withdrawn to include such actions as leaving reception without notice or missing interviews. Suspended applications can be reopened once within nine months of being suspended.
- Externalisation and border control: One major development in Italy’s migration policy which took place in 2024 was the attempt to operationalise the Italy-Albania Protocol, certain elements of which were temporarily halted by national courts. Internal border controls with Slovenia were reintroduced and extended until June 2025, and a trilateral memorandum of understanding signed with Croatia and Slovenia in January 2025 institutionalised joint border patrols along the Balkan route and raised rights concerns.
- Safe countries list reform: Decree Law 158/2024, which came into force in October 2024, incorporated the list of safe countries of origin (SCO) directly into legislation. The revised SCO list covered 20 countries, including Albania, Bangladesh, Egypt, Georgia, and Tunisia, while a number of other countries, including Cameroon, Colombia and Nigeria, were removed. SCO designation now excludes the possibility of partial territorial application but allows for the exclusion of specific categories of people.
- Dublin procedures: 7,926 outgoing procedure requests were sent in 2024 and 47 transfers were made. Regarding the incoming procedure, 24,217 requests (including take charge and take back requests) were received by Italy. This marked a significant decrease from 2023 (35,563 incoming requests received). The suspension of Dublin transfers due to the state of emergency continued throughout 2024 but it did not completely halt take charge procedures: 48 transfers were made based on the family procedure and 68 others based on the humanitarian clause.
Reception conditions
- Reception management under emergency rules: The extended state of emergency allowed for derogations from normal public procurement rules. This resulted in the widespread use of direct awards for facility management.
- Access to reception conditions and reception capacity: Law 187/2024 prioritised access to reception for sea arrivals and allowed exclusion from reception for people who entered irregularly and failed to apply for asylum within 90 days without justification. By 31 December 2024, Italy’s reception system consisted of 95,453 places in emergency accommodation centres (CAS), 461 places in hotspots, 3,724 places in government centres and 37,678 places in the national reception system (SAI). Despite the availability of places in the reception system in 2024, many applicants did not receive one. In addition, prefectures shortened the length of stay for protection beneficiaries and issued reimbursement requests to people who marginally exceeded income thresholds.
Detention of asylum applicants
- Jurisdiction shifted to appeal courts: Law 187/2024 transferred the responsibility for validating detention procedures for asylum applicants from specialised courts to appeal courts.
- Repatriation centre in Albania: Law 75/2025 allows for the forced transfer to Albania of people who are already detained in Italian repatriation centres (CPRs) without any further judicial control by the competent justice of the peace.
Content of international protection
- SAI network: As of May 2025, the SAI network consisted of 872 projects offering 39,084 places, including specialised accommodation for unaccompanied minors and individuals with disabilities or mental health needs.
- Long-term residence and naturalisation: In 2024, 4,456 protection beneficiaries obtained long-term residence permits while 708 others received Italian citizenship.
(B) Temporary protection
- Permits: 16,885 temporary protection (TP) permits were issued in 2024. Beneficiaries are required to prove that they left Ukraine after February 2022 and it is now possible to convert a TP permit into a work permit.
- Validity and renewal: The validity of TP permits has been extended until March 2026. However, renewals are no longer automatic and require an application via the post office.
The full report is available here, and the temporary protection annex to the report is available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
