Track UK's latest migration numbers - including asylum, visas and small boats
- Published
Net migration to the UK - the number of people arriving, minus those leaving - has fallen close to pre-Covid levels, according to government figures published on Thursday.
How does that sit alongside other key migration measures, including overall immigration, small boat arrivals and visas granted? Scroll down to find out more about the latest key figures, and get answers to key questions on a range of topics.
Small boat crossings and other illegal arrivals
How many people cross the English Channel in small boats?
Between 1 January and 25 November 2025, a total of 39,292 people crossed the English Channel by small boat from France. This was up by 17% on the same period the previous year.
These crossings have become the most common way for people to be detected entering the UK illegally since 2020.
Nearly all those who arrive by small boat claim asylum. Under international law, this means they are allowed to stay in the country while their asylum application is considered.
Small boat arrivals made up 41% of asylum applications between October 2024 to September 2025.
Boats that arrived in the UK from 26 November 2024 to 25 November 2025 carried an average of 61 people. This has more than doubled since 2021.
Experts say overcrowding in boats makes crossings riskier. At least 84 people died while attempting to cross the Channel in 2024, according to the United Nations (UN).
When looking at the scale of small boats crossings, the number of these arrivals is about 5% of the size of total immigration into the UK from July 2024 to June 2025.
The government has pledged to “smash the gangs” behind these crossings in order to reduce the numbers.
Who is arriving in the UK on small boats?
People from Eritrea accounted for 17% of all arrivals from October 2024 to September 2025.
In the latest figures covering January 2024 to December 2024, at least 353 people who arrived by small boat were found to be potential victims of human trafficking or other forms of modern slavery, according to the Home Office.
How else do people stay in the UK without permission?
Another 5,590 people were detected entering the UK without permission via other methods including hiding in vehicles, travelling on ferries or through airports from October 2024 to September 2025. This was down by 17% on the same period the previous year.
There are also individuals who arrive legally, for example via a work or study visa, and then overstay their limit.
The total number of people who live in the UK illegally after arriving legally is not known.
Asylum applications and hotels
How many people are in asylum accommodation?
An asylum seeker is someone who wants to be in the UK because they say they cannot live safely in their own country due to persecution or violence.
The government must house an asylum seeker if they cannot financially support themselves while their claim is being considered. There were 108,085 people in asylum accommodation as of September 2025.
About 34% of those people, 36,273, were in hotels. These are used when there is not enough shared housing available, such as houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) or former military sites.
The government has pledged to stop the use of hotels by 2029.
More people are in hotels across the south of England than elsewhere in the UK, while HMOs are more common in the north of England and Scotland.
Numbers of asylum seekers in hotels by council area
How many people apply for asylum in the UK?
A total of 110,051 people applied for asylum in the UK from October 2024 to September 2025. This was up by 13% on the same period in the previous year.
Most people who arrive in the UK by small boat claim asylum, but they were only 41% of all asylum seekers from October 2024 to September 2025.
The rest include people who arrived by other illegal means or who came to the UK legally and applied for asylum while holding, or just after holding, a valid visa.
How big is the asylum backlog?
It can take years for the government to decide whether someone should be granted asylum.
There was a backlog of 80,841 people waiting for a first decision on their claim in September 2025. This was down by 39% on the previous year.
There was also a second backlog of 50,976 people as of March 2025 who have been refused asylum, but have appealed the decision in court. This was up by 88% on the previous year.
Together, these two figures make up the government’s total asylum backlog, which it has pledged to clear.
Refugee status was granted in about 44% of asylum decisions made by the Home Office from October 2024 to September 2025.
Refusals were overturned in about 45% of the appeal decisions made from April 2024 to March 2025.
Returns and deportations from the UK
How many people are returned or deported from the UK?
The government requires people who are in the UK, but no longer have permission to live or work in the country, to leave.
This is called a return and can happen voluntarily or by deportation.
People can lose the right to be in the UK for different reasons, such as a visa expiring, an asylum claim being refused, or by receiving a criminal conviction that results in deportation.
There were 36,457 returns from October 2024 to September 2025. This was up by 11% on the same period the previous year.
That number of returns is equivalent to about 5% of total emigration from the UK from July 2024 to June 2025.
Who is returned from the UK?
Of all returns from October 2024 to September 2025:
- 5,343 had been convicted of a criminal offence
- 10,958 had lodged an asylum claim at some point
- 2,272 had arrived in the UK by small boat
People from India made up 24% of all returns from October 2024 to September 2025.
What is the 'one in, one out' deal with France?
The UK is trialing a scheme with France to return people who arrived in the country on a small boat.
For every person the UK sends back to France, the UK will accept an equal number of asylum seekers.
This is called the "one in, one out" deal. As of 27 November 2025, 153 people have been returned through this arrangement.
How do people leave the UK under immigration control?
Returns can happen in different ways. "Enforced returns", which includes deportations, means the government arranges transport to return people to a different country. In some cases, people are escorted by officers.
All other returns are "voluntary". This means a person has agreed to leave and may receive government help with travel and other costs to help facilitate the return.
Some people classed as leaving the country voluntarily do so completely independently and without any government knowledge or involvement.
Independent returns made up 33% of the total from October 2024 to September 2025.
Visas for legal migration
How do people come to the UK legally?
Most people who come to the UK do so legally, after being granted a visa before they travel.
A visa gives someone permission to enter or stay in the UK for a specific purpose, such as work, study or joining family members.
There were 838,908 entry visas granted from October 2024 to September 2025, not including visitors or people transiting through the UK. This was down by 22% on the same period the previous year.
That does not mean all those people travelled to the UK, only that they were approved to do so.
What are the most common reasons for entry each year?
The most common type of visa issued by the government was for study and made up 53% of all visas approved from October 2024 to September 2025.
Who gets the most common UK visas?
People from India were the most common group to come to the UK on study visas, making up 23% of the total.
Together, people from China and India accounted for nearly half of all study visas. This has been the case for many years.
UK migration compared with other countries
How do small boat crossings to the UK compare with other countries?
While the UK government records small boat crossings, certain EU countries on the Mediterranean monitor the number of people arriving by sea without permission.
From November 2024 to October 2025, a total of 43,109 people were detected arriving by small boat to the UK.
The UK accounted for about 21% of all sea arrivals across the UK, Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus over the same period.
Sea arrivals into mainland Europe peaked in 2015, when the UN said more than a million people crossed the Mediterranean.
How does the UK compare on asylum?
A total of 109,142 people applied for asylum in the UK from July 2024 to June 2025.
The top three countries with the most people claiming asylum were Germany with 190,000, France with 158,000 and Spain with 155,000.
The UK ranked at number five for asylum claims out of 26 European countries with populations over one million.
When adjusted for population size, the UK ranks at number 11 for asylum applications per 100,000 people.
How does the UK’s net migration compare?
Net migration measures the overall change in a country’s population due to migration over a given period. It is everyone coming into the country (immigration) minus everyone who leaves (emigration).
From July 2024 to June 2025, the UK’s population increased by 204,000 after taking into account the people who left the country, and those who arrived.
The latest available data to compare the UK with other European nations is January 2023 to December 2023.
When adjusted for population size, the UK was in position four for increase in population due to migration among 14 other European countries with comparable data per 100,000 residents.
Why do Channel migrants want to come to the UK?
- Published9 July
Find out more about people crossing the Channel in small boats
- Published22 October
Produced by: Rob England, Libby Rogers, Jess Carr, John Walton, Becky Dale, Allison Shultes, Chris Kay, Steven Connor and Scott Jarvis.
Graphics by: Jez Frazer and Zoe Bartholomew
About the data
*The figure for net migration will not sum exactly to the total of immigration minus emigration, because it is published as a rounded figure by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Figures from government or other official sources used in this report can be revised retrospectively between publications. This page only displays data as it is presented in the latest release.
ONS figures for immigration and emigration are update twice per year.
Small boats figures from the Home Office are updated daily. Asylum, returns and visa figures from the Home Office are updated every three months.
The number of people appealing against a refused asylum decision is updated every three months by the Ministry of Justice at a different time to other government figures on asylum.
Immigration, emigration and net migration
Figures for net migration come from the ONS, external and use the internationally recognised definition of a long-term migrant: "a person who moves to a country other than that of their usual residence for at least a year."
Visas for legal migration
Data for total entries via visas only includes those granted. It does not include people coming to the UK on a visitor visa or those on a transit visa - whose final destination is not the UK.
Visa figures do not show if or when an individual arrived in the UK, but marks the point at which they were granted permission to do so.
If someone was granted more than one visa within the year shown, each one is counted separately.
The work category refers to new individuals linked to visas and permits, or the extension of an existing permission. This includes sub-categories such as seasonal, health and care, domestic and youth mobility visas.
Study visas include all sponsored individuals by approved education providers in the UK, and those on short-term study visas.
Family visas lets someone come to the UK or stay longer so they can live with close family members who are already here. It includes joining a spouse, partner, child or parent, or coming to care for a relative.
The Other category refers to miscellaneous visas outside the categories of work, family and study. It includes humanitarian routes such as the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme and the British National Overseas route.
It also includes family permits for people from countries in the European Union or European Economic Area.
Asylum applications and hotels
Figures for asylum seekers in hotels are published by the Home Office under the "contingency accommodation - hotel" category.
The number of people in all other forms of accommodation includes those in non-hotel contingency accommodation, plus initial, dispersal and "other" accommodation.
A scale is used to determine how close a local authority is from the average share of the population for an area in the UK. It compares the share in that area to the share across all areas in the UK that use that form of accommodation.
Less than half = more than 50% below the average share of the population
Lower than = between 25% to 50% below the average share of the population
About the same as = within 25% of the average share of the population
Higher than = between 25% to 100% above the average share of the population
More than double = more than 100% above the average share of the population
Figures on the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application include both applicants and dependants.
The number of open appeals against refused asylum applications refers to individuals.
Small boat crossings and other illegal arrivals
The figures for small boat crossings and the average number of people per boat are derived from the UK Home Office's daily timeseries, external.
Entering the UK without permission is an offence under immigration law, external, but asylum seekers are generally not prosecuted for doing so if they claim asylum on arrival. In some cases, people have been prosecuted for entering the UK without permission alongside other offences, such as people smuggling or re-entering after deportation.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) collects figures, external for people who died or went missing while crossing from mainland Europe to the UK.
These reports are based on French and UK officials (such as police or coastguard) or media sources, and are considered an undercount by the IOM due to a lack of official statistics.
The figures can include people who died in the Channel while crossing, but also those who died at any point while en route to a crossing point.
Data for modern slavery only includes final decisions. Modern slavery includes any form of human trafficking, slavery, servitude or forced labour.
Figures for other entries without permission are the sum of all irregular arrivals that were not by small boat, including inadequately documented air arrivals, recorded detections at UK ports and other recorded detections in the UK.
Returns and deportations from the UK
Figures on people who come to the UK but are denied entry at that point and then leave the country are not included in the number of returns in this page.
People being returned after being convicted of a criminal offence includes people who are not British citizens who have been convicted in the UK of any criminal offence, or convicted abroad for a serious criminal offence.
Returns involving the government include the Home Office categories of enforced returns (also known as deportations) as well as assisted and controlled voluntary returns.
Independent returns are referred to by the government as other verified returns.
UK migration compared with other countries
Sea arrivals figures are taken from the UNHCR European sea arrivals dashboard, external and combined with UK Home Office figures for small boat arrivals.
Asylum applications, immigration and emigration figures for European countries is the latest available data from Eurostat for the following countries:
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Norway, Switzerland and Croatia.
Population figures for the UK are from ONS, National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency 2024 mid-year estimates, and for Europe from Eurostat data as of 1 January 2024.
In order to account for smaller populations and make European data comparable with the UK, when calculating figures for net migration and asylum applications, European countries with a population of less than one million have been excluded.
Additionally, when calculating net migration, only countries which include asylum seekers or refugees in their immigration figures are included, these are:
Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland.
