|Published on: 16th July 2026|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on Serbia provides a detailed overview of legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2025. It is accompanied by an annex providing 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 2024 are set out below.
(A) International protection
Asylum procedure
- Key statistics on arrivals: The Ministry of Interior and the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (CRM) recorded 9,567 arrivals in 2025. This represented a significant decrease from the previous year (19,603).
- Access to the territory and pushbacks: Pushbacks from Serbia to North Macedonia and Bulgaria continued in 2025. This practice was highlighted in the February 2026 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment ‘O.H. and Others v. Serbia’. Only 76 foreign nationals were officially readmitted to neighbouring countries while 4,620 were refused entry. The Ministry of the Interior also reported 10,802 preventions of illegal entry, many of which are also likely to have been pushbacks.
- Access to asylum at the airport: Access to the asylum procedure at the airport remained problematic in 2025. There were numerous cases of automatic refusal of entry and the affected people continued to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty. This was highlighted in the October 2025 ECtHR judgment ‘H.G.D. v. Serbia’.
- Registration and lodging of asylum applications: 626 people registered international protection claims in 2025 while only 130 ultimately lodged their application. In some cases, people who had been served an expulsion order and people who had been returned from neighbouring countries were still denied access to the asylum procedure and exposed to risks of chain refoulement, misdemeanour prosecutions or denied access to reception facilities.
- First instance decision-making: The Asylum Office issued 172 decisions regarding 228 asylum applicants in 2025. 118 applicants were rejected on the merits, seven were granted refugee status and 100 had their procedure discontinued due to absconding. The first instance asylum procedure was still very long (more than a year) and was hampered by poor credibility assessments and poor country of origin research which resulted in a low recognition rate and unpredictable results. Practices regarding survivors of sexual- and gender-based violence and LGBTQI+ applicants also continued to deteriorate.
- Appeals: Of the 68 decisions it took in 2025, the Asylum Commission only upheld two appeals. In doing so , it largely confirmed the Asylum Office’s contentious practice regarding applicants from the Russian Federation, Burundi and Türkiye, as well as in the arbitrary application of national security grounds and poor credibility assessments.
- Legal aid: Legal aid continued to be limited due to funding cuts. This also had a negative impact on the NGOs that had traditionally provided it.
Reception conditions
- Reception capacity and conditions: The reduction in the number of number of asylum applicants in 2025 meant that there was no overcrowding in reception facilities.
- Vulnerability: There was no state-organised or coordinated vulnerability assessment in asylum procedures in 2025. Although NGOs and lawyers identified the most vulnerable applicants, the evidence they collected was systematically ignored by asylum authorities.
Detention of asylum applicants
- Deprivation of liberty: 499 third country nationals were detained under the Foreigners Act in 2025 but no asylum applicants were detained. According to information provided by the Ministry of the Interior, mass detention on national security grounds was not an issue in 2025 unlike in previous years.
- Detention conditions: The National Preventive Mechanism criticised the living conditions and detention regimes in the Padinska Skela and Plandište detention centres. It also outlined a lack of adequate healthcare and vulnerability screening upon arrival, and a lack of meaningful activities.
(B) Temporary protection
- Registration for temporary protection: 387 people registered for temporary protection in 2025 and 394 people were granted temporary protection for the first time. In addition, 859 people had their temporary protection status extended.
- Access to rights: No major specific issues regarding temporary protection beneficiaries’ access to rights were reported in 2025. Most of the problems identified were identical to those encountered by asylum applicants and people who had been granted asylum.
The full report is available here and the annex on temporary protection is available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
