Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Asylum-Seekers 1 in 5 asylum seekers come from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela This chapter presents the main trends in asylum applications and decisions in 2018. Note that it does not include information on mass influxes of refugees or those recognized as refugees on a group or prima facie basis. During the year, some 2.1 million individual applications for asylum or refugee status were submitted to States or UNHCR in 158 countries or territories in 2018, a small increase from 2017 when there were 1.9 million. 67, 68 Of the provisional total of 2.1 million, 1.7 million were initial applications lodged in “first instance” procedures, 69 while the remaining claims were submitted at second instance, including with courts or other appellate bodies.70 unhcr > Global trends 2018 In many countries, UNHCR may undertake refugee status determination. In those countries, UNHCR offices registered 227,800 applications in 2018, of which 12,200 were on appeal or repeat [Table 3]. 67 As some countries have not yet released all of their national asylum data at the time of writing, this figure is likely to be revised later this year. In particular, it should be noted that South Africa is yet to submit national asylum data. 68 Analysis of global levels and by country of asylum is based on individuals, with cases multiplied by the average number of persons per case. Analysis by country of origin is based on individuals and cases as reported by the country of asylum, since inflation factors are not available by country of origin. 69 The data for some countries may include a significant number of repeat claims, i.e. the applicant has submitted at least one previous application in the same or another country. 70 Statistical information on outcomes of asylum appeals and court proceedings is under-reported in UNHCR’s statistics, particularly in industrialized countries, because this type of data is often either not collected by States or not published openly. 41