Socio-Demographic Overview of Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Albania- A Current Overview

Abstract

As an aspirant to a full membership in EU, Albania has adopted since 2021, a new legislation in line with EU standards on asylum. The laws “On Asylum in Republic of Albania” and “On the Foreigners in Republic of Albania” guarantee the recognization of the rights of persons that have requested or been granted the right to asylum or other forms of protection. The law “On Asylum in Republic of Albania” integrate for the first time the categorization of persons with specific needs, harmonised the time frame for the asylum proces with EU legislation, included the accelerated asylum  procedure, free public legal assistance had to be provided at any administrative or legal process and determined the roles of the Reception Center for Asylum. Figures about migration hasn’t changed a lot in the recent years. Figures do not tell all about socio-demographic aspects of the asylym seekers and refugees in Albania, so a study was desiogned to gather some information in this aspect, as a part of a major study. A census method was applied to collect data from asylym seekers and refugies entering in Albania during May 2026. Results show that majority of them were of a young age, more than 50% with unfinished obligatory education, mainly coming from countries of armed conflict, travelling for more than 1 year from their origin countries and having no identification documents.