4.43 million people were under temporary protection in the EU at the end of August. Romania recorded the second-largest monthly increase
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The number of people who had fled Ukraine and were benefiting from temporary protection in the European Union reached 4.43 million on 31 August 2026. Germany, Poland and Czechia continued to host the largest communities, but Romania recorded the second-largest absolute increase compared with the previous month, with 3,440 people. The data measure the number of active statuses at the end of the month, not the number of people newly arriving in a country.
Approximately 4.43 million people who fled Ukraine after the outbreak of Russia’s war were benefiting from temporary protection in the European Union on 31 August 2026, according to data published by Eurostat on 12 October. Compared with the end of July, the European total increased very slightly, by 3,290 people, but this stability at EU level conceals much larger movements between states.
Germany recorded the largest absolute increase in August, with 4,330 people, followed by Romania, with 3,440, and Czechia, with 3,135. In percentage terms, the increase reported for Romania was 1.6% in a single month. This result places Romania very high in the ranking of monthly changes, without meaning that the country has become one of the main European destinations by total number of beneficiaries.
In brief
On 31 August 2026, 4.43 million people were benefiting from temporary protection in the EU.
Germany hosted 1,294,555 beneficiaries, Poland 939,395, and Czechia 398,360.
The largest monthly increases were recorded in Germany, +4,330, Romania, +3,440, and Czechia, +3,135.
During the same period, Poland recorded a decrease of 13,665 people, Finland of 6,260, and France of 2,125.
The statistics describe the number of people with registered status at the end of the month and should not be interpreted as data on new arrivals.
The difference between developments in Romania and those across the Union as a whole is explained by the fact that national variations offset one another. The number of people under temporary protection increased in 24 of the 27 Member States, but the decrease of 13,665 recorded in Poland, together with the declines in Finland and France, almost completely offset the effect of the increases in the other countries. Therefore, an increase of 3,440 in Romania can coexist with a variation of only 3,290 for the EU as a whole.
Germany remains by far the main host country, with almost 1.3 million people, representing 29.2% of the European total. Poland has approximately 939,000, or 21.2%, while Czechia has nearly 398,000, equivalent to 9% of the total. Together, the three countries host a very large share of the population under temporary protection, even though the monthly distribution is constantly changing.
The picture changes when the number of beneficiaries is reported in relation to the host country’s population. At the end of August, Czechia had 36.5 people under temporary protection per 1,000 inhabitants, Slovakia 27.7, and Cyprus 27, while the Union average was 9.8 per 1,000 inhabitants. A country can therefore have an absolute number lower than Germany or Poland and, at the same time, a much higher share relative to its own population.
These three types of indicators answer different questions. The total number shows how many people are registered in a state at the end of the month, the monthly change shows how that stock changed compared with the previous month, and the ratio to the population provides a picture of the relative scale of beneficiaries’ presence in the host society. Comparing them as if they measured the same thing can lead to incorrect conclusions about the pressure on a state or the direction of movements.
The increase of 3,440 reported for Romania does not mean, for example, that exactly 3,440 people entered the country in August. Eurostat publishes an administrative stock of statuses recorded at the end of each month. The difference may reflect the granting of new statuses, as well as changes to existing records, and the practices by which states remove people who are no longer benefiting from protection are not completely identical.
This limitation is particularly important in a system in which people can move between European states, return to Ukraine, or change their legal situation. Administrative statistics are essential for tracking the scope of the protection provided, but they cannot automatically be transformed into a measure of physical migration from one month to the next.
The composition of the population under temporary protection remains almost entirely dominated by Ukrainian citizens, who represent over 98.5% of the total. Adult women accounted for 43.6%, adult men for 27.3%, and minors for 29.1%, meaning that almost three in ten people holding this status are children and adolescents.
The demographic structure explains why temporary protection has implications extending beyond the right of residence. The European mechanism provides access to education for children, healthcare and social assistance, housing, and the labour market, while needs differ according to age, family situation, and length of stay. A large number of minors means, for example, that schools and integration systems become an important part of the public response.
Temporary protection was activated at EU level in March 2022 for people displaced by the Russian invasion and allows a common status to be granted quickly without each beneficiary having to immediately go through the regular asylum procedure. The mechanism enabled states to manage millions of people simultaneously and created a comparable set of rights throughout the Union, although practical implementation remains the responsibility of national authorities.
The August data show that, more than four years after the beginning of the full-scale war, the population under temporary protection is not declining uniformly across Europe. The stability of the total at 4.43 million conceals increases in most states and very large decreases in a few of them, meaning that monthly analysis increasingly depends on how national registers are updated and on beneficiaries’ movements between countries.
For Romania, the 1.6% increase in August is relevant precisely in this context: it is one of the largest monthly variations in the EU, but primarily indicates that the number of active statuses at the end of the month was higher than in July. To establish how much of this difference resulted from new grants, movements between states, and the way records were updated, more detailed national administrative data would be needed.
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