1. Detention of applicants shall take place, as a rule, in specialised detention facilities. Where a Member State cannot provide accommodation in a specialised detention facility and is obliged to resort to prison accommodation, the detained applicant shall be kept separately from ordinary prisoners and the detention conditions provided for in this Directive shall apply.
As far as possible, detained applicants shall be kept separately from other third-country nationals who have not lodged an application for international protection.
Where applicants cannot be detained separately from other third-country nationals, the Member State concerned shall ensure that the detention conditions provided for in this Directive are applied.
2. Detained applicants shall have access to open-air spaces.
3. Member States shall ensure that persons representing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have the possibility to communicate with and visit applicants in conditions that respect privacy. That possibility shall also apply to an organisation which is working on the territory of the Member State concerned on behalf of pursuant to an agreement with that Member State.
4. Member States shall ensure that family members, legal advisers or counsellors and persons representing relevant non-governmental organisations recognised by the Member State concerned have the possibility to communicate with and visit applicants in conditions that respect privacy. Limits to access to the detention facility may be imposed only where, by virtue of national law, they are objectively necessary for security, public order or the administrative management of the detention facility, provided that access is not thereby severely restricted or rendered impossible.
5. Member States shall ensure that applicants in detention are systematically provided with information which explains the rules applied in the facility and sets out the rights and obligations of those applicants in a language which they understand or are reasonably supposed to understand. In the event that an applicant is detained at a border post or in a transit zone, Member States may derogate from that obligation in duly justified cases and for a reasonable period of time which shall be as short as possible. This derogation shall not apply in cases referred to in Article 43 of .
Correlation table
| Directive 2013/33/EU | This Directive |
| Article 10 | Article 12 |