The irregular immigration to the European Union has strongly decreased during the first eight months of 2026, but the evolution is not the same at all borders. While the detected entries in the community as a whole have fallen by 35%, the Western Mediterranean route, which includes arrivals to the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands, has increased by 34% compared to the same period of the previous year.
According to the latest data released by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, between January and August, just over 74,000 irregular crossings at the external borders of the EU were recorded. The clearest exception to the downward trend is precisely in the Western Mediterranean, where around 15,900 entries were detected, more than a third above 2025.
The change is particularly relevant for Spain. Algeria has consolidated itself as the main country of departure to the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands, while Frontex links part of the increase to a shift in the activity of human trafficking networks following the tightening of controls in Morocco and other nearby routes. July recorded the highest monthly pressure level in the last three years in this corridor.
Balearic Islands gain weight within the Algerian route
The Balearic archipelago has been registering a high arrival of boats from North Africa for months. Only until September 8, 5,344 people had reached the islands in 308 small boats during 2026, according to the count made from data from the Ministry of the Interior and the Government Delegation. On that same day, 157 migrants arrived in nine boats in Mallorca, Cabrera, and Formentera.
The route fundamentally departs from the Algerian coast and can exceed 250 kilometers of navigation depending on the departure point and the destination island. Formentera, Cabrera, and Mallorca are among the main arrival places.
The Balearic Government has been warning for months that this route has ceased to be a sporadic phenomenon to become, in its view, a consolidated and structural migration route. At the end of July, the regional government estimated that more than 11,000 people had reached the islands by boat in the last year and a half.
Canary Islands fall by 58%
The evolution of the Balearic Islands and the Western Mediterranean contrasts especially with the route from West Africa to the Canary Islands, which for years has concentrated a good part of the migratory pressure on Spain.
Frontex recorded approximately 5,100 detections on this route between January and August, representing a year-on-year drop of 58%, the largest recorded among the main European migratory corridors.
The change points to a redistribution of flows rather than a uniform evolution. While departures to the Canary Islands decrease, the corridor connecting Algeria with the east and southeast of Spain and with the Balearic Islands gains weight.
Arrivals from Italy and Greece also decline
The decline extends to almost all other major entry routes to Europe. In the Central Mediterranean, mainly used to reach Italy from North Africa, Frontex recorded about 19,400 detections until August, a 55% less than a year earlier.
In the Eastern Mediterranean, which mainly includes arrivals to Greece and other points on the eastern European border, crossings decreased by 25%, to approximately 24,200. Attempts detected to cross the English Channel also fell by 43%, with about 26,600 records.
In this way, the Western Mediterranean appears as the great European exception in 2026: while migratory pressure significantly decreases across the EU, it increases on the route leading to Spanish territory.
Frontex does not include the Ceuta crisis in its figures
The data also contains a relevant peculiarity. Frontex has not included in those 15,900 detections the entries recorded in Ceuta at the end of July, during the episode that caused strong pressure on the autonomous city.
The European agency explains that it is unlikely to establish a definitive figure for that episode because many of the people who crossed the border subsequently returned to Morocco without being formally registered. For this reason, they were excluded from the balance used to compare migratory routes.
This means that the 34% increase in the Western Mediterranean occurs even without incorporating that extraordinary arrival in Ceuta.
More than 5,000 arrivals in the Balearic Islands in 2026
In the specific case of the Balearic Islands, the pressure has remained during September. On the past day 1, the Civil Guard and Maritime Rescue had counted 4,789 people arrived during the year in 253 boats; barely a week later, the figure had already surpassed 5,300.
Throughout all of 2025, 7,321 people arrived in the archipelago in 401 vessels from Algeria, a year that had already set a record and ended with an increase of 24.5% compared to 2024.
The data from Frontex now confirms that the Balearic phenomenon is part of a broader change. Europe records fewer irregular crossings in 2026, but Spain faces a shift of pressure towards the Western Mediterranean, with Algeria gaining prominence as a departure point and the Balearic Islands consolidating as one of the destinations of that route.