Lebanon brands itself a transit state for refugees. Yet for most of the ca 1.7 million refugees residing in the country, transit has become a permanent condition and neither resettlement nor return are realistic solutions. In the meantime, Syrian and Palestinian refugees struggle to survive in a country ravaged by multiple and overlapping crises. In law, the bureaucracy and the humanitarian system, there are multiple meanings of vulnerability in use to assist and protect refugees and other ‘vulnerable’ groups. This chapter analyses refugees’ encounters with different institutions and frameworks established to assist and protect refugees. The chapter introduces a conceptual framework for analysing encounters, agency and vulnerability in crisis settings and a short description of our methodology, we then discuss the situation for refugees in Lebanon in the context of compounded crises. From here, the chapter describes the different meanings of vulnerability in legal and bureaucratic frameworks, including in humanitarian assistance, before analysing the various ways in which Palestinian and Syrian refugees negotiate meanings of vulnerabilities in their encounters with those institutions and frameworks. In conclusion, we reflect on the impact that these multiple meanings of vulnerabilities have on refugees residing in Lebanon.