Government data on Friday shows that the total number of refugees living in Germany had fallen slightly for the first time since 2011.
According to response to a parliamentary query by The Left party, says the refugee population dropped by about 50,000 in the first half of 2025, from roughly 3.55 million at the end of 2024 to about 3.50 million.
The data shows that the figure includes people with different residency statuses, from recent arrivals to long-term residents, as well as refugees from Ukraine.
While the decline reflects a combination of deportations, voluntary departures and naturalisations, the Left party said.
In 2024, 83,150 Syrians were granted German citizenship, according to the Interior Ministry.
Of the roughly 3.5 million refugees, some 492,000 currently hold uncertain status, including asylum seekers and people with temporary toleration.
At the end of July, 1.27 million refugees from Ukraine were living in Germany.
The Left party’s Clara Bünger said the decline was no cause for celebration, noting that the factors forcing people to flee are greater worldwide than they have been in a long time.
She added that fewer people in need of protection were making it through the European Union’s fortified external borders.
“The drop in absolute numbers in Germany only shows the absurdity of talk about a so-called emergency used to justify suspending EU asylum law,” Bünger said.
