Refused entry
Non-EU citizens refused entry at an EU external border.
Europe border desk
Illegal immigration in Europe, measured clearly.
Track illegal entry, unlawful stay, return orders, and completed returns. Every figure states what was counted and when.
EU enforcement / 2025
From refusal at the border to return.
Eurostat records four different stages. They show the scale of illegal entry and stay, and how many returns were completed.
Found illegally present
Non-EU citizens recorded as illegally present in an EU country.
Ordered to leave
Non-EU citizens issued an order to leave an EU country.
Returned outside the EU
Non-EU citizens returned to a non-EU country after an order to leave.
Latest quarter / Q1 2026
Return enforcement continued into 2026.
108,475ordered to leave
34,550returned outside the EU
These are annual or quarterly administrative totals, not one group followed through every stage. A person returned in 2025 may have received an order in an earlier year.
Ceuta border incident / July 2026
72,000Estimated entries during the incident.
Spain's interior minister gave this updated estimate on 4 August. It replaces the early 60,000 figure as the best available headline estimate.
People still in Ceuta / disputed
There is no reliable final count.
Interior said 70,000 of the estimated 72,000 entries had returned to Morocco. Later local registrations and observations did not support the implied remainder of about 2,000.
Ceuta president's estimate / 8 August report3,000-6,000Food rations at one beach / 8 August report2,500+Minors formally registered / 10 August~1,400
These measures overlap and still exclude people hiding in hills or staying in private homes. They cannot establish a final total.
Spain comparison
One border incident exceeded a full year of arrivals.
Choose a bar to compare the scale. The periods differ, so these figures must not be added together.
Why the labels differ
Illegal immigration is the policy subject. Official Spanish and EU releases usually use irregular arrivals or border-crossing detections. A detection counts an event and may not represent a unique person.
Irregular route map
Main irregular routes into Europe.
The map shows four Frontex routes for the first half of 2026 and the later Ceuta estimate. Choose a route for details.
Frontex values are detections at EU external borders from January to June 2026, not unique people. The Ceuta estimate is a later event shown separately and is not part of the Frontex half-year route total.
Keep legal categories separate
Asylum and temporary protection are not counts of illegal immigration.
A person may request asylum after an irregular entry, but the application is a separate legal process. Temporary protection is another legal status.
applications by non-EU citizens in April 2026, down 11% from April 2025
Eurostat source ↗people with temporary protection status on 30 April 2026, mainly people who fled Ukraine
Eurostat source ↗Demographic continuity / family
Europe is not replacing its population through births.
Fertility is below replacement in every European country. Europe should make family formation easier and stop treating immigration as a substitute for family policy.
European countries at replacement fertility
0Every country is below the long-run replacement level.
The United Nations says fertility in all European countries is below the roughly 2.1 births per woman needed for population replacement over the long run without migration.
EU total fertility / 2024
1.34 EU average2.1 replacement level
The gap is continental, not local.
Total fertility rate is a period measure, not a forecast. It shows how many children a woman would have if one year's age-specific birth rates continued throughout her life.
EU population by country of birth / 2025
85.6%Born in country of residence
4%Born in another EU country
10.4%Born outside the EU
Country of birth is not ethnicity. People born in the reporting country are counted here regardless of their parents' origins.
Births to foreign-born mothers
This measure rose by 6 percentage points in ten years. It includes mothers born in another EU country and does not describe a child's ethnicity or citizenship.
A pro-family response
Make it easier to start and support a family.
Affordable housingReliable childcareStable family taxationFlexible workFertility careTime for parents
Family policy should expand real choices and reduce practical barriers, without coercion.
451.8m2025
445.0m2050
398.8m2100
This is a conditional population scenario, not an ethnic forecast.
What this means
Persistently low fertility produces population ageing and, over time, natural population decline. Net migration can increase total population, but it does not raise domestic fertility. Europe should pursue higher family formation directly instead of relying on immigration to offset the gap between births and deaths.
What Ceuta shows
Annual totals can hide a sudden border event.
Pressure can rise quickly
The 72,000 estimate is larger than Spain's published total for all of 2024. A yearly trend cannot describe a sudden incident.
The remaining total is unknown
Interior's return claim implied about 2,000 remained, but later counts found more people across several locations and registration systems.
Do not confuse the measures
Crossings, detections, people present, return orders, and completed returns answer different questions.
Ceuta is an EU external border
Ceuta is in North Africa, but it is part of Spain. The event therefore affects the wider European border system.
Read before comparing
Do not add these figures together.
Border data counts detected events. Illegal-presence data records people found by authorities. Orders to leave are legal decisions. Returns count movements out of the EU. Asylum data counts applications, while temporary protection counts people with that legal status.
The page uses official Spanish, Frontex, and Eurostat releases. The Ceuta incident uses clearly labelled estimates attributed to Spanish officials. Data checked 11 August 2026. Any figure may later be revised.