As One Door Closes, Another Opens: Chinese Migrants Crossing the Balkans

That year, more than 620 illegal border crossings by Chinese nationals were recorded on the Western Balkan route, according to statistics from the European Union border agency, Frontex, plus a further 30 travelling via Greece and Albania.

In 2022, the figure for the Western Balkan route was just 88. Last year, it hit 706.

Driven by economic hardship and political discontent, a growing number of Chinese nationals are trying to reach the EU via the Balkans, their route to the United States made more difficult by the loss of a visa-free regime with Ecuador and growing hostility under Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

Today, they are being lured by social media posts glorifying the German welfare system, but their first stop is invariably Serbia, which they can enter without a visa.

The risks are great.

In two separate incidents in October and December last year, four Chinese nationals drowned trying to cross from Serbia into Croatia.

Leaving China behind

Wang Qing treks along a highway near Bihac, attempting to find a way to cross into the EU. Photo: Zhaoyin Feng.

Before leaving his homeland, Wang had moved from job to job, having dropped out of school.

“Jobs back home are exhausting,” he said. “There’s no time off, and wages are often delayed.”

Out of work since 2023, he decided to head to Europe with some money from his parents. It was the first time he had ever travelled outside of China.

In China, youth unemployment remains high. The unemployment rate among 16 to 24-year-olds was 18.9 per cent last August. In 2023, the figure hit a record high of 21.3 per cent, amid signs of an economic slowdown.

Some Chinese migrants on the Balkan route said that they decided to leave China after their small businesses suffered during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The country’s shrinking economic opportunities and intensified social controls in recent years have also fuelled dissent; some Chinese are losing hope of a better life, especially for their children.

Zhang Ming, 43, worked at sea but said even his relatively good wage wasn’t enough to provide long-term economic security for his family.

“Even though you can make some money at sea, you’re always afraid that if a family member gets sick, what you earn won’t be enough,” he said.

Zhang said he had also grown worried about what he described as the “brainwashing” children are subjected to in school, including having to wear military fatigues and sing war songs.

“I can’t change the situation in China. I can only escape,” Zhang said.

So he left China to seek work in Serbia, where he first heard about the possibility of crossing into the EU. He eventually hired a smuggler and crossed into Hungary, a member of Europe’s borderless Schengen zone, in September 2023.

Taking the Balkan route

Many Chinese migrants take a bus from Sarajevo to Bihac, attempting to cross into the EU from the border town. Photo: Zhaoyin Feng.

For more than a decade, the Balkan route has been a major pathway for refugees and irregular migrants mainly from the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia trying to reach the EU.

Given China has visa-free arrangements with both Serbia and Bosnia, Chinese nationals have an advantage – they are able to travel directly to Belgrade and cross without visas into Bosnia.

This is a double-edged sword, however, said Milica Svabic, a lawyer affiliated with the Serbian NGO Klikaktiv, which provides legal and social support for migrants and refugees on the Balkan route.

Able to slip into Serbia and rent private accommodation, Chinese nationals are “completely invisible”, said Svabic. “They’re invisible to state institutions [and] NGOs, and this can open the door to labour exploitation, sexual exploitation.”

Many also turn to smugglers to cross into the EU.

Wang first flew from China to Belgrade. But while Zhang headed north into Hungary, Wang took a bus to Bosnia, en route to EU and Schengen member Croatia.

His last stop before crossing the cold river was the Bosnian border town of Bihac.

There, in an abandoned water tower that migrants often use for shelter, smugglers advertise their services on the walls in multiple languages. Chinese is the latest. Next to a WhatsApp number, it reads: “If you wish to travel to Europe (Italy, Germany, France, etc.), we can help you. Thank you.”

Wang met several of his countrymen in a Bihac hostel and they set off together through the woods to the border with Croatia.

The first time he crossed, Croatian border police pushed him and his fellow migrants back across the border.

He and others travelling with him, who also spoke to BIRN, described being pepper-sprayed by police and their mobile phones being destroyed, one of a number of heavy-handed police tactics that have been well-documented at the border with Bosnia. Losing a phone can mean not just losing contact, but also a means of payment.

For his next attempt, Wang hired a smuggler for some 2,000 euros. Pushed back again, he finally succeeded at the third attempt and eventually reached Germany, where he applied for asylum.

US route full of uncertainty

Migrants pick up supplies from NGO workers outside a refugee camp on the outskirts of Sarajevo. Photo: Zhaoyin Feng.

In Chinese, it is called ‘walking the route’ – the process of leaving the homeland, frequently for the US, illegally via its southern border with Mexico.

Numbers have soared since China lifted its COVID-era travel restrictions in early 2023.

Most began by flying to Ecuador, where they previously didn’t need visas, and then trekked to Mexico.

In 2023 alone, more than 37,000 Chinese nationals were apprehended trying to cross the US southern border illegally.

In July 2024, however, Ecuador revoked the visa waiver; Washington has also tightened controls at its southern border and, particularly under Trump’s second presidency, stepped-up a nationwide crackdown on undocumented migrants.

Europe has emerged as a Plan B.

“Now a lot of clients are going to Europe, such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy,” said the Chinese proprietor of a guesthouse in Istanbul, Turkey, and who advertises migrant smuggling services on Telegram. “It’s because going to the US is no longer feasible, so they settle for Europe instead.”

Social media lure

Bihac in northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina near the Croatian border has been a critical crossing on the Western Balkan route. Photo: Zhaoyin Feng.

According to data from Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, BAMF, the number of Chinese nationals applying for asylum in Germany has risen steadily over the past five years.

In 2025, the figure reached 1,700, a threefold increase on 2023.

In September last year, China ranked eighth among countries of origin for asylum seekers in Germany.

Even more have sought asylum in Italy – more than 3,800 in 2025, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. A further 1,500 applied for protection in Britain.

Germany’s asylum system guarantees applicants free food and accommodation, health insurance, and social integration courses. Each applicant receives a monthly allowance of about 400 euros.

That’s more generous than most other EU states, a fact that Chinese migrants have shared on social media.

On YouTube, a video posted by a 22-year-old Chinese man has garnered more than 370,000 views. In it, he recounts his journey to Germany via the Balkans, and the support he has received from the German state since applying for asylum.

What he fails to mention is the low rate of approval when it comes to Chinese asylum seekers. Of more than 2,000 applications from Chinese nationals in 2025, 56 per cent were rejected, according to BAMF data.

Zhang’s application was turned down, but he received ‘tolerated stay’ status on appeal, meaning he is not at immediate risk of deportation. After obtaining a German work permit, he found work in an e-commerce warehouse and then a food-processing factory.

“Although I entered through illegal means in the beginning, the German government provided me food and housing, and even the integration courses were free — all paid for by German taxpayers,” Zhang said. “So I must be grateful and give something back by working and paying taxes.”

Even if Zhang is turned down for asylum, he can still secure a long-term residence permit if he demonstrates he earns a stable income, pays his taxes and meets the integration requirements. Then he hopes to be reunited with his wife and children, in Germany.

Wang, however, struggled with the language barrier and the loneliness of life as the only Chinese resident of the reception centre where he was housed.

With his asylum application still under review and the prospect of waiting years to secure a long-term residence permit, Wang saved up his monthly allowance and bought a plane ticket back to China.

“Just for the residency, it didn’t feel worth it,” he said.

Such disillusionment is not uncommon; some Chinese migrants leave Germany for southern Europe and work in the grey economy within local Chinese communities, or head back to Serbia or the Middle East in hopes of earning more than the monthly allowance provided to asylum seekers in Germany.

After more precarious employment in China, Wang left again and returned to the Balkans. This time, he came across far more Chinese migrants.

He met a dozen at a bus station in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, en route to Bihac and nearby Velika Kladusa.

“Everyone is being very cautious, asking around for all kinds of information, forming teams and sticking together,” Wang said.

But two weeks later, Wang went back to China, the allure of migration waning.

“That kind of ‘good life’ isn’t what I want,” he said. “It’s impossible for me to truly integrate.”

“I need my family, so I won’t do it again.”

*The names of migrants quoted in this story have been changed.

Dzemal Catic contributed to this article.

This article was produced within the framework of MOST – Media Organisations for Stronger Transnational Journalism, a Journalism Partnership funded by the Creative Europe programme that supports independent media specialising in international reporting.