Why illegalin.eu exists

About five million people

The Pew Research Center's most-cited estimate puts the number of unauthorised migrants in Europe at between 3.9 and 4.8 million. Member-state estimates vary. Spain alone acknowledges roughly 500,000; Germany between 180,000 and 520,000; Italy around 500,000; France between 300,000 and 400,000. The real number is unknowable by design — undocumented status does not generate a public record. The order of magnitude is not in dispute.

What is open, right now

Spain operates four Arraigo pathways (Social, Laboral, Familiar, de Formación) and introduced a fifth — Sociolaboral — in late 2024. Portugal is in a transition between the 2017 Manifestação de Interesse regime and the post-AIMA regularisation framework. Germany reformed its skilled-worker law in 2023 and opened the Chancenkarte in June 2024. Italy runs the Decreto Flussi quota system. France operates Admission exceptionnelle au séjour under the "circulaire Valls" framework; the 2024 loi d'immigration added métiers en tension as a parallel route. The pathways are legally real; the operational hurdles differ by region.

What we publish

For each route, we publish a plain-language explainer, a list of the documents actually required at the prefectoral level (not just those listed in the regulation), the practical acceptance rates by region, and the timeline between filing and resolution. The Guía práctica del Arraigo Social is one of several standing references cited across our Spain coverage.

The EU Pact — what it changes

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, adopted on 14 May 2024, is composed of ten legal instruments and transposes over a two-year window. The three parts of the Pact that most directly affect undocumented people already in the EU are: the Qualification Regulation (which replaces the Qualification Directive with uniform EU-wide refugee criteria), the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (which replaces Dublin III), and the Screening Regulation (which creates the pre-entry screening phase at external borders). illegalin.eu publishes a running tracker of national transposition status.

Vetted migration consultants

The migration-consultant market is unregulated across most of the EU. Fees between €200 and €4,000 are common for the same procedural file. Mis-filing by an inexperienced lawyer can block a route for years. The illegalin.eu consultants directory lists only lawyers who have signed the illegalin.eu practice standard: no contingency fees, no fees in advance of filing, written retainer agreements, and a published upper bound on the fee for each standard procedure.

How we vet

Three signals have to be present: at least five years of practice in migration law in the jurisdiction, publicly-filed case outcomes we can read, and a recommendation from either an established NGO in the region (Red Acoge, JRS, Pro Asyl, La Cimade, Baobab, SIMI) or a bar-association ethics record with no outstanding sanctions. The directory opens with the first batch of lawyers who meet all three.

The day after regularisation

A regularised status is not an income. We list employers who sponsor the Chancenkarte and Blue Card routes through to the signed-contract phase, employers who issue the signed contracts required for Spanish Arraigo Laboral, and employers who recruit directly through the Portuguese AIMA system. The career-consultants directory, when it opens, filters employers by whether they have placed a newly-regularised worker in the last 12 months.

How we stay independent

illegalin.eu is funded by reader donations, book sales, affiliate referrals, and display advertising. Our editorial independence from the migration-consultants we list is enforced by two rules: we do not accept referral fees from listed consultants, and we publish our fee schedule to consultants in full. No consultant on the directory has paid for placement.

What we publish — and what we don't

We publish regularisation routes, procedural guides, consultant recommendations, employer leads for the post-regularisation phase, and reporting on EU migration policy. We do not publish: speculation about individual applicants' chances; endorsements of specific political parties; any content that could serve as evidence against an undocumented reader. The reader's safety is a design constraint, not an aspiration.

No human being is illegal.

The promise

We never charge a fee to an undocumented worker. Every page, every guide, every consultant lookup is free at the point of use. The operation is funded by readers who are not themselves undocumented — through donations, book sales (Regularização em Portugal, Chancenkarte handbook, Arraigo guide), and display advertising. Nothing a reader needs is behind a paywall.

If a page on this site asks you to pay in order to see the information you need, flag it to editorial@illegalin.eu. We will publish both the correction and the apology.