With international travel significantly reduced because of the pandemic and border closures making transit even more difficult, there was a significant drop in people arriving in Luxembourg from outside the country.

There were 1,167 people claiming asylum last year, down from 2,048 in 2019, according to government data. More than a quarter (26.6%) of asylum seekers were from Syria, followed by Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela.

Syrians and Eritreans also made up for the bulk of people being granted refugee status last year (81% combined). In total, Luxembourg granted 736 requests for international protection and another 31 people were given subsidiary protection.

This is given to people who don’t qualify as refugees, but where there are substantial grounds to believe that the person concerned would face a real risk of suffering serious harm in their country.

There were also fewer immigrants and expats moving to Luxembourg during the pandemic. Registration of people arriving from within the EU and the EEA--which also includes Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland--shrank to 14,396 in 2020, from 17,469 the year before.

The most common countries of origin were France and Portugal, each making up for around a quarter of registrations, followed by Italy, Belgium and Germany.

There were also fewer permanent residence permits issued--4,100 last year compared to 5,769 in 2019.

International arrivals from third countries dropped from 1,839 in 2019 to 1,521 last year. The most common countries of origin were Brazil (199), Cape Verde (140), Morocco (75), US (67) and Russia (61).

However, the number of permanent residence permits granted was up slightly, from 1,206 to 1,302.