Symbolic image
© dpa
Last year, significantly fewer refugees came to Berlin than in 2024, according to the State Office for Refugee Affairs (LAF).
According to this, the LAF took in 14,917 new refugees in 2025, which was around 30 percent fewer than in the previous year (2024: 21,157 people).
"The significant decline in asylum seekers has meant that the burden on the benefits system in particular has been noticeably reduced," said LAF President Steffen Weickert. However, since September there has been a sharp increase in refugees from Ukraine, especially young people between the ages of 18 and 22, with the result that the level reached last year has almost been matched. The number of asylum seekers fell by around 44 percent: in 2025, 5,970 asylum seekers were accepted in Berlin who submitted initial or follow-up applications. In the previous year, the figure was 10,749. The most common countries of origin were Vietnam, Moldova, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria. There was a decline of around 14 percent in the number of refugees from Ukraine: 8,947 Ukrainian refugees were registered for Berlin at the Tegel arrival center, compared to 10,408 in 2024. Recently, many young men have been arriving from Ukraine.
The accommodations continue to be heavily utilized: at the beginning of 2026, around 38,000 refugees were living in LAF accommodations. Of these, 5,000 are not housed in regular dormitories, residential buildings, or container villages: 3,300 initially found shelter in hostels or hotels, 1,347 in the Tempelhof emergency shelter, and 480 in an arrival center in Reinickendorf. By way of comparison, around 41,400 refugees were accommodated by the LAF a year ago.
"The decision to suspend the residential container program means that the number of regular accommodation places will hardly increase in 2026," the LAF predicts in its assessment. "Although 1,166 new places will be created, 820 places will be lost due to necessary closures of locations. As a result, there will only be an increase of 346 regular places." This contrasts with a demand of 5,000 people who are still living in emergency shelters or hotels.
The emergency shelter in Terminal C of the former Tegel Airport, which reopened in January 2026, will be expanded from 500 to 1,000 places, according to the LAF. A so-called Tempohome in Finckensteinallee (245 places), i.e. a container village, is expected to reopen this year after extensive renovation. According to the LAF, two shelters in Kreuzberg will be closed in 2026 due to expiring contracts: the former hostel on Warschauer Platz and the Tempohome on Alte Jakobstraße. The State Office for Refugee Affairs is Berlin's central state authority for the registration, care, and accommodation of asylum seekers and other refugees. The office currently has 523 employees at several locations.