The Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum BFA published its annual balance for 2024 and recorded the lowest number of asylum applications since 2020.
A total of 25,360 asylum applications were registered in Austria in 2024 which is the lowest figure since 2020 and 60% less applications compared to the year 2023. The BFA made 38,836 asylum decisions in the same reference period, reducing the number of pending cases by 42%. At the end of the year 2024, there were 16,335 asylum procedures still pending at first instance.
The average duration of proceedings last year was around 7.8 months. 1,389 accelerated procedures (average procedure duration 32.5 days) were carried out for persons from safe countries of origin or from countries with a low probability of recognition, especially from Morocco, Turkey and India.
A total of 13,568 removals took place in 2024 , with the number of forced returns being higher than the number of voluntary departures for the first time since 2019.
The BFA continues to place a particular focus on offenders when returning persons: in 2023, around 45% of all persons forcibly removed from the country had at least one criminal conviction.