The Ten-Thousand-Euro Question

If Hungary had to take in asylum seekers — whether through the EU's solidarity mechanism or to avoid the fines handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) — what would it cost to support the average refugee, integrate them and help them into work? This first part examines the experience of Europe's major host countries — Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Greece — and the cost to their public finances.

Migration is not a single number. The cost of taking in a refugee shifts from year to year, and the pace of integration depends on the educational background and gender of those admitted, and on the host country's labour-market rules. The European experience shows that those who find work quickly become financially self-sufficient, while those who do not remain a charge on the welfare system for years. The question is not only what a refugee costs, but how long it takes — and under what conditions — for public spending on reception to pay for itself.

1. Migration in numbers: 2025–26

According to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, 28,500 irregular crossings of the EU's external borders were detected in the first four months of 2026 — down 40% on the same period of 2025. The figure for 2025 as a whole was 178,000, down 26% from 239,000 in 2024. The trend is unmistakable: 332,000 crossings in 2022, 380,000 in 2023, 239,000 in 2024, 178,000 in 2025, and 28,500 in the first four months of 2026. Since the 2015 peak of 1,822,000, the numbers have trended downwards.

The busiest route in 2025 was the Central Mediterranean, with 63,200 arrivals, followed by the Eastern Mediterranean with 46,200 and the West African route with 16,800.

The European Commission adopted the new Pact on Migration and Asylum in 2024, and most of its provisions take effect on 12 June 2026. One of the Pact's central elements is the solidarity mechanism: when a member state comes under migratory pressure, the others have three ways of sharing the load — taking in asylum seekers (relocation), technical support, or a financial contribution. On 8 December 2025, EU interior ministers agreed the first solidarity pool, which provides for the relocation of 21,000 asylum seekers or an equivalent financial contribution of €420 million.

2. The fiscal cost: what the major host countries pay

Asylum spending is not a single line in the budget. The costs of a system that runs from reception through integration to social benefits differ dramatically from country to country, depending on the number of people admitted, the generosity of the welfare system, and how quickly the country can move asylum seekers into work.

Germany: a record €29.7 billion

In 2023, Germany spent €29.7 billion from the federal budget on asylum. The largest item was social transfers paid after the asylum procedure had concluded: €11.8 billion. Reception, registration and accommodation accounted for a further €1.2 billion. For 2025, the federal government set an asylum budget of €24 billion, a substantial cut from previous years. Part of that saving comes from halving the budget for integration courses, to €600 million.

Martin Werding, an economist at Ruhr University Bochum and one of the five members of Germany's Council of Economic Experts — the panel informally known as the "wise men" — argues that immigration overall eases budgetary pressure over the long run. On his figures, if 200,000 people arrive in Germany each year, they narrow the fiscal gap by €104 billion a year. That amounts to a budgetary saving of €7,100 per person per year — but only in the long run, once refugees have entered the labour market.

Sweden: 190,000 kronor a year per refugee

A 2016 study by the economists Aldén and Hammarstedt, prepared for the Swedish Fiscal Policy Council, set out the costs in detail. In a refugee's first year, the net cost to the central budget ran, depending on the method of calculation, from 125,000 to 190,000 Swedish kronor (roughly €10,900–16,500). After seven years, that cost had fallen to 37,000–95,000 kronor (roughly €3,200–8,300). Education is a key determinant: for university-educated refugees the net cost by the seventh year was close to zero, while for the low-skilled it was still 49,000 kronor.

Austria: 1% of GDP

For Austria, an agent-based macroeconomic model published by Poledna and co-authors in 2024 found that 250,000 migrants would mean €7.4 billion in additional spending over five years — 2.7% of Austrian public debt, and an extra burden on the budget equivalent to 1.1 percentage points of GDP. The researchers also pointed out that economic multiplier effects reduce the net burden: they offset €2.4 billion, or 30% of the total. The daily cost of supporting an asylum seeker in Austria is €25 for accommodation plus €6–7 in food allowance — €31–32 a day in total.

Italy and Greece: the cost of the front line

Italy has set aside €670 million over five years for the migration centre it set up in Albania, though opposition MPs say the real cost could be as much as €1 billion. The facilities have room for just 3,000 people at any one time — which works out at €223,000 per place. In 2015, Greece spent 0.3% of GDP, or €600 million, on handling the refugee crisis.

3. Labour-market integration: slow progress, sharp differences

One of the biggest determinants of cost is how quickly a refugee finds work. Germany's experience is clear: by 2024, the employment rate of refugees who arrived in 2015 had reached 64% — close to the German population-wide average of 70%. Among men the rate is 76%, already above the German male average of 72%. Among women it is only 35% — half the 69% average for German women.

The process is slow. In the first year after arrival, the employment rate is around 15%; after five years it is roughly 50%, and after ten years 64%. Figures from DIW Berlin, the German Institute for Economic Research, show that 41% of refugees work in jobs below their qualification level, and that their median monthly earnings in full-time work are €2,675, or 71% of the German average.

The Swedish picture is similar: 60% of university-educated refugees were in work after seven years, while among the low-skilled the share stayed below 50%. Women are at a disadvantage everywhere: childcare obligations, language difficulties and cultural differences all mean that the employment rate among refugee women rises far more slowly. German IAB data show that in the early years refugee women lag well behind the men, and close the gap only gradually.

4. The counter-arguments: what the budget arithmetic leaves out

The figures above capture only one aspect: the cost to the budget. But a demanding reader may fairly ask: what about the effects behind the figures? These are the most important counter-arguments that fiscal analysis does not cover:

The crime statistics paint a murky picture. The 2024 situation report from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) sets the nationality breakdown of migrant suspects against the composition of the refugee population living in the country. The two largest groups appear roughly in proportion: Syrians account for 21.2% of suspects and 20.5% of resident refugees; for Afghans the two figures are 10.3% and 10.6%. The sharp over-representation lies elsewhere: Algerians make up 3.6% of suspects, Moroccans 3.0% and Tunisians 2.5%, while each accounts for no more than 0.2% of the refugees living in Germany. Interpreting the statistics is complicated, however: crime rates are concentrated among young men aged 18 to 30 — and that demographic group is over-represented among refugees.

5. What lies ahead for Hungary — a bridge to part two

By European standards, the Hungarian experience is unique: the country has taken in virtually no asylum seekers over the past decade. During the 2015 crisis, 400,000 people passed through Hungary, but the government used a border fence and a system of transit zones to make it impossible to claim asylum in Hungary. As a result, the 2024 asylum statistics record no more than a few dozen applications — the lowest number in the entire EU.

Hungary's Tisza government, which took office after the general election of April 2026, may now be forced to compromise. Alongside the €1 million-a-day penalty imposed by the CJEU, meeting the EU's 27 conditions — among them the resumption of asylum procedures — is essential to unlocking the €17.4 billion in frozen EU funds. According to János Bóka, the former EU affairs minister in the Orbán government that held office until April 2026, implementing the Pact would require building border capacity for roughly 10,000 people, and Hungary would have to rule on more than 23,000 cases a year.

Part two of the series examines the Tisza government's political arithmetic: why Hungarian migration policy may be about to change course, and what electoral incentives lie behind the decision.