Switzerland will restrict the granting of temporary protection status to Ukrainian refugees from western regions of Ukraine from November 1, 2025, according to SRF television. The decision was made by the Swiss Federal Council as part of a review of the policy on granting S status, which has been in effect for Ukrainian citizens since March 2022. Under the new rules, the state will distinguish between regions of Ukraine where it is considered safe to return and those where it is still unsafe to stay.
According to the government’s decision, the return of Ukrainians is considered acceptable in the following regions: Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Chernivtsi.
The new restrictions will take effect on November 1, 2025, and will only apply to new applications. Ukrainians who have already been granted protection status are not affected by the new rules.
The Federal Council emphasized that, overall, the temporary protection regime S remains in place, as “a lasting stabilization of the situation in Ukraine does not appear realistic in the medium term.” However, the country’s parliament had previously obliged the government to establish a more differentiated approach depending on the applicants’ regions of origin.
The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) will continue to consider each application individually. In cases where the applicant’s origin indicates a region recognized as safe, the application for protection will be rejected.
If the return of a particular person proves legally impossible or individually unacceptable, they will be allowed to remain in Switzerland temporarily.
Ukrainians who are unable to obtain S protection status under the new rules will still be able to apply for asylum or leave for other European countries.
The Federal Council also confirmed that the final abolition of the S protection regime is not planned before March 2027.
Experts note that Bern’s decision reflects Switzerland’s gradual transition to the selective application of protection status, focused on the level of security in specific regions of Ukraine and reducing the burden on the national migration system.
According to SRF, among Ukrainians currently in Switzerland under S status, about 10% come from regions recognized by the government as safe.
The number of refugees from Ukraine registered for temporary protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe stood at 2.93 million as of the end of May 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its site.
According to his data collected from national governments, Poland has the most refugees with this status – 1 million 142.96 thousand, while 3.792 million people arrived in the country from Ukraine, according to the Polish border service, from the beginning of the war to June 2 , and in the opposite direction departed to Ukraine 1.795 million.
Following are the Czech Republic and Germany, where the number of refugees registered for temporary protection from Ukraine amounted to 361.42 thousand and 329.34 thousand, respectively.
The UN, referring to government data, indicates that in total in Germany, where Ukrainians are allowed to stay without registration until the end of August, 780,000 refugees from Ukraine were recorded. So, based on the data presented, less than half of them applied for temporary protection status in this country.
In the Czech Republic, the situation, according to UN information, is different: almost all arrivals applied for protection status – 361.42 thousand out of 361.56 thousand.
In the vast majority of other countries, the picture is similar to the Czech Republic: the statistics of registered refugees is completely or almost equal to the statistics of those who applied for protection status, which is probably due to the peculiarity of their registration. An exception, similar to Germany, is only Romania – 33.22 thousand with the status of 84.47 thousand refugees registered in the country, Estonia – 25.69 thousand out of 39.8 thousand and Italy – 97.31 thousand out of 125 .91 thousand
In addition to Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy, more than 50 thousand refugees from Ukraine have also registered for temporary protection status in Spain – 109.47 thousand, Slovakia – 78.57 thousand (out of 270 thousand net inflows across the border since the beginning of the war) , Austria – 68.75 thousand, the Netherlands – 60.02 thousand, Lithuania – 53.89 thousand and Switzerland – 50.1 thousand.
Following are Belgium – 44.65 thousand, France – 43.3 thousand, Portugal – 39.79 thousand, Sweden – 38 thousand, Great Britain – 37.4 thousand, Ireland – 32.42 thousand and Denmark – 27.21 thousand, as well as the above-mentioned Romania and Estonia.
From 10 to 25 thousand refugees from Ukraine with the status of temporary protection in Finland – 24.46 thousand, Latvia – 23.38 thousand, Hungary – 23.35 thousand, Norway – 16.71 thousand, Greece – 13, 4 thousand, Croatia – 13.37 thousand and Cyprus – 11.98 thousand.
In addition, in the UN statistics on those who received the status of temporary protection, Ukrainian refugees are represented in Slovenia – 6.94 thousand, Luxembourg – 5.4 thousand, Montenegro – 2.53 thousand, Iceland – 1 thousand, in Malta – 0.92 thousand, in Serbia and Kosovo – 0.62 thousand and Liechtenstein – 0.19 thousand.
In addition, the table contains data from Bulgaria, possibly entered with an error: according to them, 78.71 thousand refugees from Ukraine were recorded there, but 110.62 thousand received protection status.
The UN also indicated the countries in which refugees from Ukraine were recorded, but there is no data on their obtaining status: Moldova – 87.72 thousand, Turkey – 85 thousand, Georgia – 19.69 thousand, Azerbaijan – 5.06 thousand. , Albania – 1.34 thousand, North Macedonia – 1.13 thousand, Bosnia and Herzegovina – 0.36 thousand and Armenia – 0.3 thousand.
Separately, it is worth mentioning Russia and Belarus, the Ukrainian border with which was crossed by 1 million 41.1 thousand and 16.65 thousand people, respectively. The UN information indicates that in the Russian Federation all those who crossed the border were recorded, while in Belarus – less than half. There is no data on any status of these people, as well as data on crossing the border of Ukraine in the opposite direction.
In total, according to the UN, 6.98 million people have left Ukraine since the beginning of the war, while, according to the State Border Service of Ukraine, about 2.5 million have returned. According to this information, the net outflow since the beginning of the war can be estimated at about 4.5 million people, including to Russia – more than 1 million people.
