Ireland had 6,255 Nigerians waiting for decisions on their asylum claims in 2025, even as applications from Nigerian nationals reached at least 11,040 over the 13-year period from 2013 to 2025.
The figures, obtained from the Asylum Information Database’s Ireland country reports, show that Nigerian applications surged in recent years before falling from 4,037 in 2024 to 1,940 in 2025.
The reports were published by the Irish Refugee Council for the AIDA project, coordinated by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles. They draw on figures from Ireland’s International Protection Office, its predecessor, the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, and Eurostat.
The 6,255 Nigerians awaiting decisions in 2025 represented more than twice the 2,819 recorded in 2024, according to Ireland’s Department of Justice.
Nigerian applications rise sharply
The number of Nigerian asylum applicants was relatively low in the earlier years covered by the reports.
There were 130 applicants in 2013, while no full-year figure was available for 2014. The figure for 2015 covered only January to July and stood at 85.
Applications rose to 175 in 2016, 185 in 2017, 251 in 2018 and 386 in 2019. The number fell to 208 in 2020 before rising to 451 in 2021.
The increase became much sharper from 2022, when Nigeria recorded 1,108 applicants. The figure climbed to 2,084 in 2023 before reaching 4,037 in 2024.
Nigeria then recorded 1,940 applicants in 2025.
The country was Ireland’s biggest source of asylum applicants in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. It ranked second behind Zimbabwe in 2019 and behind Somalia in 2025.
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The 2024 figure was 21.7 per cent of all asylum applications received by Ireland that year. In 2025, Nigerian applicants accounted for 14.75 per cent of the total.
Across the African nationalities listed in the reports, Nigeria had the highest number of applications. Somalia recorded at least 6,514 applications across the years in which it appeared in the published rankings, followed by Zimbabwe with at least 4,063, Algeria with at least 3,397 and South Africa with at least 1,569.
The five nationalities accounted for at least 26,583 applications.
The AIDA reports only list the top five to 10 nationalities each year. Smaller groups are placed under the category of “others.”
Rejection rate and faster processing
The rise in Nigerian applications came against a much larger increase in Ireland’s overall asylum caseload.
Ireland received at least 80,656 asylum applications in the full years covered by the reviewed reports. Nigerian applications accounted for at least 13.69 per cent of that total.
Ireland’s total applications were below 1,000 a year in the early 2010s before reaching 3,276 in 2015. The figure fell to 2,244 in 2016, with the Irish Department of Justice Immigration Service attributing the decline almost exclusively to fewer applicants from Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The total later rose to 4,781 in 2019, before falling to 1,566 in 2020 during the pandemic year. It then climbed to 13,651 in 2022 and reached 18,560 in 2024 before falling to 13,159 in 2025.
Decision figures for Nigerian applicants also varied sharply over the period.
The rejection rate stood at 96.7 per cent in 2012, 96 per cent in 2013, 97.1 per cent in 2016 and 94.4 per cent in 2018.
By 2021, the rejection rate had fallen to 14.3 per cent. In that year, 65.7 per cent of decided Nigerian cases received humanitarian permission to remain instead of full refugee status.
The reports did not publish detailed nationality-based decision figures for 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Nigerian applications have also been subject to prioritised processing in Ireland. The AIDA reports state:
“Since 2003, applications from Nigerian nationals have also been prioritised and therefore subjected to accelerated procedures.”
The reports said the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the policy as lawful in the HID and BA case, which had been referred by the Irish High Court.
Appeals in prioritised cases are decided on paper without an oral hearing, the reports stated.
From April 23, 2024, the International Protection Office began prioritising and accelerating applications from the nationality with the highest number of applications during a given period.
The 2024 AIDA update stated that “from April 2024, applications from Nigerian nationals were prioritised” on that basis.
The arrangement was extended in July 2024 to include Jordan, which had the second-highest number of applicants, and the 2025 update recorded the system as still applying to Nigerian and Jordanian applicants.
During 2025, 4,747 cases were processed under the accelerated procedure, with Nigerian nationals accounting for the largest group.
Of 5,040 decisions issued under the scheme during the year, 4,712, or about 93.5 per cent, were rejected on the merits.
The figures leave a large number of Nigerian applicants still waiting for decisions, with 6,255 recorded by Ireland’s Department of Justice in 2025.
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