Short answer
For applications registered after 1 July 2026, Regulation (EU) 2024/1351—the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation, or AMMR—assigns one participating Member State to examine the claim. Its criteria must be applied in order. Protection of unaccompanied minors and family unity comes before residence documents, visas, educational qualifications, visa-free entry, airport applications and prior irregular entry. Dependency and discretionary humanitarian clauses can then alter the result.
The country where the person asks for asylum is therefore not automatically responsible, and neither is the first country entered in every case. The determining authority must establish the facts at the legally relevant time, respect the hierarchy and observe short request and transfer deadlines. If no criterion identifies another State, the State where the application was first registered is responsible.
A transfer cannot proceed where substantial grounds show that it would expose this applicant to a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment contrary to Article 4 of the Charter. The assessment covers both structural reception defects and individual risks, including severe health deterioration. The authority must continue through the criteria to find another responsible State; if none can safely receive the applicant, the determining State becomes responsible.
First identify whether the new or old system applies
The AMMR repealed Dublin III, Regulation 604/2013, from 1 July 2026. Its transitional rule is precise. Responsibility for an application registered before that date remains governed by Dublin III. An application registered after that date is governed by the AMMR, and responsibility-producing events before the date can still count.
This distinction matters because the new Regulation changes definitions, criteria, time periods and procedures. Older Court of Justice judgments remain important for Charter rights and concepts that continue, but their result must be mapped to the new text rather than treated as if Dublin III were still in force.
The criteria operate as a hierarchy
Article 24 requires the criteria to be applied in their legislative order and by reference to the situation when the application was first registered. Authorities cannot select the administratively easiest criterion while overlooking an earlier family criterion.
The principal sequence is:
- the special rules for an unaccompanied minor;
- a family member legally residing as a beneficiary, long-term resident or qualifying citizen;
- a family member with a pending protection application;
- a joint family procedure;
- a residence document or visa;
- a recent diploma or other educational qualification;
- visa-waived entry;
- an application in an airport international transit area; and
- irregular external-border entry or disembarkation following search and rescue.
Only after applying the hierarchy should the authority use the dependent-person and discretionary clauses. Separate “take charge” and “take back” procedures allocate responsibility and enforce it; missed deadlines can transfer responsibility to the requesting or transferring State.
Unaccompanied minors come first
For an unaccompanied minor, only Article 25's criteria apply. A State where a family member or sibling is legally present is responsible unless reunion is contrary to the child's best interests. A capable relative legally present in another State can also establish responsibility. Where qualifying people are in several States, best interests decide.
If there is no such person, responsibility lies with the State where the minor's application was first registered, provided that this is in the child's best interests. That differs from the rule interpreted under the earlier Dublin II system in M.A., C-648/11, which favoured the State where the unaccompanied minor was present after multiple applications. The new legislature expressly selected first registration while retaining an individual best-interests safeguard.
Before transfer, the authority must assess safety, well-being, development, continuity of care, the child's views and other relevant circumstances. Family tracing and a trained representative are not optional administrative extras.
Family unity can displace entry responsibility
The AMMR's family definition generally covers a spouse or comparable stable partner, unmarried minor children and, for an unmarried minor applicant or minor beneficiary, a responsible parent or adult. Importantly, the family must have existed before the applicant or family member arrived on Member State territory—not necessarily in the country of origin.
Where the family member resides in a State as a beneficiary of international protection or long-term resident, that State is responsible if the people concerned express that wish in writing. The rule also covers a former beneficiary who later became a Member State citizen. Where a family member has a protection application awaiting a first decision on substance, that State is responsible on written agreement.
Evidence must be assessed fairly. The Regulation's recitals reject a rigid demand for original documents or DNA where coherent, verifiable and sufficiently detailed circumstantial evidence—such as contact records, photographs or witness evidence—establishes the relationship. At the same time, the authority may investigate contradictions or fraud.
Dependency is a binding, fact-sensitive link
Article 34 normally requires States to keep or bring together an applicant and a child, sibling or parent where one depends on the other's assistance because of pregnancy, a newborn child, serious mental or physical illness, severe disability, severe psychological trauma or old age. The family tie must predate arrival on Member State territory, the carer must be able to provide assistance and the people concerned must agree in writing.
“Member States shall normally keep or bring together the applicant with that child, sibling or parent.” —
The State where the legally resident child, sibling or parent lives is generally responsible. If the applicant cannot travel there for a significant period because of health, the State where the applicant is present becomes responsible. Medical evidence should address functional assistance and travel risk, not merely give a diagnosis.
Documents and prior movement still matter
A valid residence document ordinarily makes the issuing State responsible. A valid visa points to its issuing State, or the represented State where another issued it under a representation arrangement. Recently expired, annulled, revoked or withdrawn documents still count: generally three years for residence documents and 18 months for visas.
The AMMR also adds responsibility based on a recent diploma or qualification: the State of the educational establishment is responsible if the application was registered within six years of issue, with ordering rules for multiple qualifications.
For irregular entry from a third country, the first State entered is responsible where proof or circumstantial evidence establishes the crossing. That responsibility ends 20 months after the crossing. Disembarkation after search and rescue has a separate 12-month period. These entry rules sit below family, document and other earlier criteria; “first entry” is not a universal answer.
The unsafe-transfer rule is absolute
Article 16(3) prohibits a transfer where substantial grounds show a real risk that the applicant would suffer treatment contrary to Article 4 of the Charter. Unlike Dublin III's text, it does not express the rule only through “systemic flaws.”
“The determining Member State shall continue to examine the criteria … in order to establish whether another Member State can be designated as responsible.” —
In N.S. and M.E., C-411/10 and C-493/10, the Court rejected a conclusive assumption that every participating State complies with fundamental rights. Known systemic deficiencies creating a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment barred transfer.
Later case law makes clear that systemic failure is not the only route. In C.K., C-578/16 PPU, transfer of a particularly seriously ill person could itself create a real and proven risk of significant and permanent health deterioration, even without systemic deficiencies. Authorities must consider precautions, postponement and, if the risk cannot be removed, the responsibility consequences.
Jawo, C-163/17, addressed post-transfer living conditions. Extreme material poverty reaches Article 4 only where official indifference would leave a person unable to meet the most basic needs—food, hygiene and a place to live—in a manner impairing physical or mental health or placing the person in degrading incompatibility with human dignity. Poverty or reduced social protection alone does not meet that demanding threshold.
Procedure and deadlines can decide responsibility
Applicants must receive information, a personal interview and an effective remedy against a transfer decision. The remedy can challenge misapplication of responsibility criteria and a real Article 4 risk. Family information should be raised early, but authorities must fairly examine information available under the Regulation.
The requesting State must act within the applicable take-charge deadline; the requested State must respond within the prescribed period. Accepted responsibility must then lead to transfer within the statutory period, normally six months. Failure can shift responsibility. Mengesteab, C-670/16, confirmed under Dublin III that an applicant could invoke an expired request deadline. Although the AMMR has its own deadlines, the judgment remains important for the proposition that allocation time limits protect individuals as well as inter-State administration.
Discretion remains available
A State may decide to examine an application even if the hierarchy assigns another State. It may also request another State to take charge to unite family relations on humanitarian, social, cultural or compassionate grounds. These clauses permit humane solutions but do not reduce the binding force of family and fundamental-rights criteria.
Conclusion
Responsibility under the AMMR is a documented sequence, not a slogan about the country of first entry. For post-1 July 2026 applications, start with minors and family unity, then documents, education and entry facts, followed by dependency and discretionary clauses. Apply procedural deadlines, and separately test whether transfer would expose the individual to Article 4 treatment. Registration date, family evidence, health, travel history and conditions in the receiving State can each change the answer.
Sources
This article provides general legal information, not advice for a specific matter. Laws, facts and procedural deadlines may change the result. Follow the linked primary sources and obtain local advice before acting.