Population figures
Total country population
5,702,832
Forcibly displaced population
Refugees (under UNHCR's mandate):
124,106
Asylum-seekers:
123
IDPs (of concern to UNHCR):
0
Other people in need of international protection:
0
Other
Statelessness persons
40
Host community
0
Others of concern to UNHCR
0
Country context
Slovakia is a landlocked Central European state bordered by the Czech Republic and Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south and Austria to the west.
Forcibly displaced in Slovakia include refugees and asylum applicants from a range of countries—recent arrivals under temporary protection from Ukraine, as well as asylum seekers from the Middle East, South Asia and beyond—who reside predominantly in urban centres and regional towns. Accommodation is provided through reception facilities and private housing under the regulatory framework of the Asylum Act, rather than in dedicated camps. Stateless individuals, who may hold temporary identity documents issued under the foreign-residence law, live alongside other foreign-national communities in similar urban settings.
...International protection is anchored in the Act on Asylum (Act No. 480/2002 Coll.), which defines criteria and procedures for refugee status determination, subsidiary protection and temporary refuge, and sets out applicants’ rights and obligations. The Act has been amended regularly to transpose EU directives, most recently on 28 May 2023, to extend procedural safeguards and to regulate support for persons under temporary protection in response to regional displacement. An enabling resolution (No. 185/2022) activated the EU Temporary Protection Directive for arrivals from Ukraine, establishing residence permits, accommodation allowances and pathways to education and employment through domestic authorities.
Statelessness prevention is supported by Slovakia’s accession to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, both of which take precedence over national law under the Constitution. Relevant EU obligations have been transposed through amendments to the Asylum Act and the Act on Residence of Foreigners, embedding procedures for identification and issuance of travel documents to persons of undetermined nationality.
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