Albanians, the second most rejected at EU borders in 2024

Albanians are the second most rejected at the borders of the European Union, after Ukrainians (19,595).

In total, 14,260 Albanian citizens were rejected at land, air and sea borders in 2024, half of which at land borders (7,855).

Half of the total was rejected in neighboring countries, Greece and Italy, while the rest was distributed in Lithuania, Hungary, Germany, etc.

Why were Albanians mainly rejected?

According to Eurostat, Albanian citizens were mainly rejected (14,260) due to “An alert/alert has been issued” (28.8%) and “The purpose and conditions of stay are not justified” (27.2%).

After Albanians, the most rejected are Moldovans (12,100), Turks (6,760) and Serbs (6,190).

Returns of third-country nationals

In 2024, the number of third-country nationals returned to a third country increased by 19.3%.

In 2024, 110 385 third-country nationals who received an order to leave an EU country were returned to a third country, representing 88.1% of total returns (i.e. including returns to another EU country.

Georgian nationals accounted for the largest number of returns to the EU with 11,585 of them returned to a third country. They were followed by Turks (7,910), Albanians (7,810), Moldovans (4,970) and Colombians (4,930).

Rejected in Europe

In 2024, 123,655 third-country nationals were refused entry to the EU territory at one of its external borders, a slight increase of 0.3% compared to 2023.

918,925 people were found to be illegally staying in an EU country, which represents a decrease of 27.4% compared to 1.27 million in the previous year.

The number of third-country nationals against whom a removal order was issued by an EU country was 453,380, a decrease of 7.3% compared to 2023 (489,335).

In 2024, the majority (56.9%) of third-country nationals who were refused entry to the EU were through the EU's external land borders, followed by refusals at air borders (39.8%), while only a small proportion (3.4%) of total refusals were at sea borders.

Almost a third of the total number of refusals were recorded in Poland (16.7%) and Croatia (11.3%).

The largest number of refusals recorded at the external land borders were reported by Poland (18 030; 87.2% of all refusals of entry to Poland), Croatia (13 535; 97.0%), Romania (8 960; 88.2%), Hungary (6 205; 0.5; 89%) and Greece (85 170; 78.2%).

Regarding air borders, in 2024 France reported the highest number of refusals (7,800) in the EU, followed by Germany (6,935), Ireland (6,240) and Spain (5,650) in 2025.

Italy (1,320) reported the highest number of refusals at EU sea borders in 2024, followed by France (1,145)./Monitor