How many refugees have arrived over the years?

According to Statistics Denmark, 48,000 have residence in Denmark due to asylum, and 21,000 have been family reunified to them. The amount of newly arrived refugees has dropped and stagnated in recent years. During the two years 2015 and 2016 a total of 18,342 were granted asylum which is a high number, but divided into periods of five years the last period has not been especially high. Both 1985-89 and 1995-99 were higher, see the last graphic below. Since the spring of 2016 very few refugees have come to Denmark, and the years 2020 and 2024 saw the lowest numbers in 40 years: less than 1,000 were granted asylum each of those years, and some even had another residence permit already.

In total, there are 670,000 immigrants and refugees living in Denmark who are citizens in another country or stateless. It could seem like a lot, but one out of four were born in the country, and almost half came from other EU countries. In recent years, refugees have formed less than 1% of all the foreigners who got a residence permit. And in time, many will get Danish citizenship, their children will grow up and become Danish. It's hard to imagine Denmark today without the refugees from Hungary, Vietnam, Chile, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Bosnia etc. who have become an important part of society.

RESIDENCE PERMITS TO REFUGEES 2008-2020
(incl. humanitarian and resettlement)

Even if a person acquires permanent residence permit over time, she/he will still be in the statistics as a refugee, a non-Western immigrant or a descendant. Not even acquiring Danish citizenship will move you to the category "Dane" – this requires being born in Denmark and having at least one parent with Danish citizenship. For some reason, refugees from ex-Jugoslavia are counted as non-Western, despite coming from Europe.

The number of refugees has fluctuated a lot over the years and the nationalities have varied widely. Some nationalities have arrived in a very short period (for example Chileans and Bosnians) and others have arrived over a longer time span (for example Afghans and Iraqis). During recent years, Syrians, Eritreans and Afghans have been the largest groups. Since 2022, 50,000Ukrainians have arrived, which is by far the largest group ever. But they are not defined as refugees, falling under a special act.

Top 5 nationalities among all the people with refugee background in Denmark are Syria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Resettlement refugees (UN quota refugees) have been chosen from very different countries and from changing criteria. Since 1978 Denmark received a quota of 500 a year from UN, but in the years 2016-18 we did not accept any. From 2020 to 2022, the total number of arrivals was only 393.