Approximately five per cent of Cyprus population are refugees, ranking the island first among the three countries recording the highest share of immigrants in the European Union, a report by the Rockwool Foundation (RF) found on Wednesday.

“The EU is home to a record number of foreign-born residents, reaching approximately 64 million in 2025,” the authors of the report write.

While the absolute migration influx appears to be highly concentrated on Germany and Spain, which account for nearly half of new arrivals in 2024, smaller member states including Cyprus, Malta and Luxemburg record the highest overall migration exposure in relation to their population

In this context, Malta records the highest share of migrants, amounting to 57 per 1,000 people, followed by Cyprus at 39 per 1,000 inhabitants and Luxemburg at 36 per 1,000 people.

Although the number of migrants per 1,000 inhabitants recorded in Malta is higher than in Cyprus, the refugee share per 1,000 is higher in the Republic, standing at 4.8 per cent and therefore higher than in Germany, 3.2 per cent, which leads the ranking in absolute terms.

“The distribution of refugees highlights a key divide between absolute capacity and relative burden across EU countries,” the report reads.

This compares to the total share of immigrants in the population of 28 per cent in Cyprus, followed by 32 per cent in Malta and only exceeded by Luxembourg, where the immigrant population accounts for approximately 52 per cent of its population.

“These gaps are not just statistical: they translate into very different administrative burdens, political dynamics, and policy constraints,” the report reads, describing the current status quo as a “cross-country asymmetry”.

According to the RF report, these asymmetries are reinforced by the refugee distribution, leaving countries like Cyprus to “carry a much heavier burden relative to their population”.

“This imbalance lies at the core of ongoing debates over responsibility-sharing within the EU,” the report concludes.

Cyprus has in recent years tightened its migrant policies with the justice ministry and the deputy ministry of migration recently pledging to improve the efficiency of deportations of migrants residing illegally in Cyprus.

In this context, it is vital to highlight the major distinctions between legal and illegal migrants.

Many migrants residing in Cyprus are from Western countries, such as Ukraine and Russia, with Cyprus currently ranking fourth in the EU for hosting Ukrainian refugees, while Russians constitute one in five of the foreign residents in Cyprus.

Meanwhile, Cyprus has seen a drop in asylum applications and cases filed by asylum seekers and foreign nationals both the Administrative Court of International Protection and the Administrative Court in 2025.

In December 2025, the island recorded a total of130 first-time claims and 95 repeat applications, reflecting a broader EU trend and a significant drop compared to December 2024, which saw 230 first-time claims and 40 repeats.

The highest number of appeals from non-safe countries came from the Democratic Republic of Congo (1,153), followed by Syria (374), Cameroon (261) and Nigeria (199). Among safe countries, most applications came from India (28), Egypt (19) and Bangladesh (12).

The total number of completed appeals in 2025 amounted to 3,130 with only 68 successful outcomes.

Of these, 19 applicants were granted refugee status, six received subsidiary protection, 33 saw the contested decision annulled, eight had detention orders revoked, and in two cases alternative measures to detention were imposed.