Your asylum interview is very important. At this interview, Greece will determine if you will receive refugee status or subsidiary protection or be denied asylum. Depending on your country of origin, there is a possibility that the authorities will first assess if Greece is responsible for examining your application. The interview might be a lengthy and stressful procedure. It is, therefore, important to prepare beforehand what you will say; good preparation will help you not forget to mention important parts of your story. We advise you to seek legal assistance and preparation for your interview as soon as possible.

During your interview, you will be asked to explain why you had to leave your country and why you will be in danger if you go back. Refugee status is given to people who face persecution in their country of origin because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political views. Subsidiary protection is given to those who do not qualify for refugee status but face serious harm if they return to their country of origin. "Serious harm" is the death penalty or execution, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or serious and personal threat to a civilian's life or physical integrity due to indiscriminate use of force in international or domestic armed conflict situations.

Important notes

You will be notified of the interview date on the day of your registration by a written invitation. Do not miss your interview appointment, as the authorities will consider that you are not interested in continuing the examination of your application and will close your file.
If you provide an email address, you might be notified of your decision by email. Give an email address only if you check it regularly. Otherwise, you risk losing the deadline to submit an appeal in case your application is rejected.
A separate interview is conducted for each adult family member. An interview is also conducted for minors, taking into consideration their level of maturity and the mental consequences of any traumatic experiences they may have experienced.
Everything you say during your interview is confidential and will not be disclosed to the authorities of your country of origin. It can be, however, shared with other Greek authorities.

*The following process applies to Ukrainian nationals who haven’t obtained Temporary Protection status and applied for international protection.

During your interview

During your interview, you have the following rights:

You can consult a lawyer to help you prepare for the interview.
If you are vulnerable and your interview is scheduled within 15 days from the submission of your asylum application, you can ask for up to 3 days to prepare your interview. If your interview is scheduled for a date longer than 15 days after the submission of your asylum application, you will not be allowed to have these 3 days to prepare.
You can ask to postpone the appointment only if there are major health issues to prove that you cannot present on the day of your interview. In this case, you will need relevant documents to prove this. In this case, you cannot ask for three additional days to prepare. We advise you to seek legal assistance and preparation for your interview as soon as possible.
You can have your lawyer, psychologist or social worker with you during the interview.
You have the right to ask for another interpreter if you feel that the interpreter that has been assigned doesn’t provide the appropriate interpretation.
You have the right to express your preference regarding the gender of the interviewer and interpreter, e.g. If you are a woman, you can ask the interview to be done by a woman officer of the asylum service and a woman translator. Please note that during the registration of your asylum application, you are asked whether you have any preferences regarding the gender of the interviewer and of the interpreter.
Make sure to ask for any clarification if the question asked by the interviewer is not clear to you.
You can ask for a break or water if you feel tired.
You can ask for a copy of your interview, once it is finished.

Admissibility and Eligibility interviews

Depending on the country you entered Greece from and your nationality, you might have to go through two separate interviews or a merged one. If you have entered Greece through a so-called “safe third country”, the Greek authorities will first try to establish whether Greece is responsible for examining your application (admissibility interview) or if you will be readmitted to the third country. Albania and North Macedonia are considered safe third countries for all asylum applicants who came to Greece by crossing them, regardless of nationality. If you have entered Greece from Turkey, you will have an admissibility interview, but only if your country of origin is Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia, or Syria.

If the authorities determine that Greece is responsible for examining your application, then they will assess your personal story and whether you should be granted international protection status (eligibility assessment).

During the admissibility assessment, you will be asked:

about the duration of your stay in the third country
if you have applied for asylum in this country and if not, why
if you have family, friends or any supporting network there
if you speak the language of the country
if you had access to work, housing, education and healthcare
any violent or traumatizing incidents that have occurred during your journey and stay in the third country, which put your life in danger while residing there and could cause such danger again if you returned there.

Make sure to provide as many details as possible regarding such incidents to assess whether this country could be considered safe for you to live in. It is important to describe in detail any arguments that you have proving that Turkey, North Macedonia or Albania is not a safe country for you and mention if you have been pushed back from this country or when you tried to enter it.

Telling your story

Tell your story truthfully and in detail. Write it down before your interview to help you remember.

Seeking help from a lawyer or a legal NGO will help you be prepared in the best way possible, as professionals can help you organize your thoughts, identify which of the details of your story are crucial, etc. It is expected that you will not remember every detail of your story and will not be able to answer every question you are asked during the interview. If you don’t know something, try to explain to the interviewer why, e.g. maybe you were too young when some of the incidents happened, or your memory might have been affected by traumatic experiences that you have been through. Medical or psychosocial reports proving such allegations (e.g. difficulty in recalling traumatic events) are critical.

Try to avoid gaps and contradictions when telling your story, as they may lead to the rejection of your application. Please also note that the asylum officer who will perform your interview has access to your application file. This means that if there are any contradictions between things you said during your registration and what you say during your interview, you will be asked to justify them to assess your credibility.

Mention:

Dates and times of the events that forced you to leave your country
Places where these events happened
People involved in these events

Be prepared to answer detailed questions. For example: If you were a car mechanic, the interviewer may ask you the names of specific car pieces in your mother tongue or the name of the neighborhood where you had a shop, if this information is relevant to your asylum claim.

If you claim that you have been a member of an opposition party, you will be asked when exactly you joined the party, who is its leader and the political positions of the party, what was your position and your duties in this party etc

Provide all relevant information about your asylum claim. That includes information about:

Why did you leave your country
Why you cannot return to your country
How you came to Europe

Clearly explain any persecution you face at home. Explain clearly why you fear persecution because of your:

Race
Religion
Nationality
Political opinion
Membership in a particular social group (you may belong to a particular social group because of your gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, if you have a serious illness or disability etc)

Questions the Asylum Service asks

You will be asked questions related to the information in your application, including:

Your identity
How you came to Greece
The reasons you left your country of origin (or the country where you used to live, if you are a stateless person)
The reasons you cannot or do not wish to return to that country
Your family members
Your ethnic group
Whether you were in the military or any other fighting group in your home country
Whether you have documents showing that you served in the military
Whether you are sympathetic to any fighting group
Your religious background
Where in Europe you would like to go
Your educational background
Whether you are willing to return to your country when the war is over
Any health issues you have and any health issues in your family
Whether you are sending money to family members or any family members are sending money to you
Languages you speak
Your past jobs

What to bring

Bring all the official identity documents you have.

These include:

Your Registration card
Your police note, or “kharti”
Your passport or any other ID card, if you have them

Bring all the documents you brought with you from home or that you got throughout your journey.

Examples:

Family book
Birth certificates
Marriage certificates
Military books
Educational diplomas
Language school certificates

You should bring any documents that support your claim during your interview.

Examples:

Letters and emails from friends
Photos
Medical and/or psychosocial reports (especially certification of victim of torture)
Police reports
Newspaper articles
Facebook posts
WhatsApp messages
Transport tickets

Copies only

Bring hard copies or clear photographs or scans of your documents.

Do not bring any family members’ original documents, either. If you bring others’ Registration cards, the Asylum Service may take them away, as part of its strategy for stopping black market sales.

Decision

According to the law, a decision on your asylum application should be issued within 6 months under the regular procedure, but this deadline may be extended by an additional 3 months. In total, the procedure should be completed within 21 months. Under the fast-track procedure, the examination of the asylum application should be completed within 20 days, but this deadline may be extended by 10 more days, followed by an additional extension of 20 days if necessary. In practice, the average period for issuing a decision varies from case to case.

Always ensure that your contact details are up-to-date in the Asylum Service's system. The decision will be notified to you in one of the following ways:

In-person
Via a registered letter that is sent by the Asylum Service to the address you provided
By email: If you provided your email address as a form of communication by the Asylum authorities during the interview, you should check it regularly (including in the spam folder).
By uploading the decision on an electronic application managed by the Asylum Service
Through your authorized lawyers, consultants, or representatives.

If you reside in a Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) or you are detained in a detention facility, the decision is sent to the Head of the RIC or of the Detention facility.

If you want to inquire about the progress of your application, you can contact the competent asylum office and also request a certificate regarding its status.

For more information on the steps to follow after the issuance of a decision, check our relevant article: