A report from the federal government on the situation of unaccompanied minors in Germany reports about 22,004 unaccompanied minors and 19,713 young adults under the responsibility of child and youth welfare as of 30 June 2025. This represents the first decrease in the number of unaccompanied minors in Germany since October 2021. On 1 December 2024, there were 29,015 unaccompanied minors and 15,503 young adults.
In addition to Ukraine, the main countries of origin of unaccompanied minors were Afghanistan and Syria. Due to the significant increase in unaccompanied minors in previous years, counties, federal states and municipalities quickly reached their capacity limits when transferring children into the regular system and faced several challenges due to a lack of accommodation and skilled/trained staff.
The report also provides figures on asylum applications, indicating that 15,269 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in 2023, more than twice as many as in 2022. In 2023, the main countries of origin of first-time asylum applicants were Syria (41%), Afghanistan (40%), Turkiye (5.4%) and Somalia (3.6%). 95% of first-time asylum applicants were male and 5.5% were female. In 2024, 13,344 initial asylum applications were submitted by unaccompanied minors.