In the past two years, significantly fewer people have entered Germany illegally. That divided them Federal Police with. In 2025, this detected 62,526 illegal entries at the German borders. This means that unauthorized entries have fallen by half compared to 2023. In 2024 there were 83,572 unauthorized entries, and in 2023 that counted Federal Police 127,549 more. At that time, officials arrested more than 20,000 people in some months. In December 2025 the number was now almost 4,600.
Since mid-September 2024, there have been border controls for entry at all German borders again; this was already the case in some cases before. The temporary controls have so far been extended twice. Actually, border controls are not planned in the Schengen area, which is most EU states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Since border controls began, the federal police say they have registered 67,918 unauthorized entries. Of these, 46,426 people were rejected or pushed back directly at the border or in connection with illegal border crossing. 2,513 people were prevented from entering the country because they were banned from re-entering Germany. Since then, 1,945 smugglers have been arrested.
24,400 people have been turned away since May
Federal Minister of the Interior
Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) ordered in May 2025 an intensification of the controls that were introduced under the previous traffic light government. Since then, the federal police are also supposed to turn away asylum seekers, with exceptions for members of vulnerable groups, such as sick or pregnant women. Since May 8, 2025, the federal police have counted 33,338 unauthorized entries. 242 vulnerable people have applied for asylum.
Since the stricter border controls began in May, a total of 24,400 people have been rejected at the German national borders by the end of 2025. According to the federal police, almost 1,200 of those rejected came from a so-called safe third country and were therefore prevented from crossing the border. Unauthorized or irregular entries are those where people do not have a valid residence permit.
