{ "meta": { "title": "Migration and asylum: the official figures", "standfirst": "Visas granted, asylum claims and decisions, the backlog awaiting a decision, returns, asylum accommodation including hotels, small boat arrivals and net migration, each read from the primary Home Office and ONS releases for the year ending March 2026 (or as stated).", "basis": "Four different measures appear on this page and they must never be added together or treated as interchangeable. Visas granted counts people given permission to travel to or stay in the UK for work, study or family reasons, a system entirely separate from asylum. Asylum claims and small boat arrivals are a small subset of total migration: in the year ending March 2026 about 93,500 people claimed asylum, against roughly 728,000 work, study and family visas granted in the same period. Net migration is a different measure again, published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics rather than the Home Office: it is the difference between everyone estimated to have moved to the UK for 12 months or more and everyone estimated to have left, covering all reasons for migration, not only visas or asylum. None of these totals should be summed with another or used as a proxy for the others.", "sourceNote": "Sources: Home Office Immigration System Statistics, year ending March 2026 (published 16 July 2026); Home Office small boats time series to 23 July 2026; ONS Long-term International Migration, year ending December 2025 (provisional); Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2025 to 2026.", "statVisas": 728070, "statAsylumClaims": 93525, "statBacklog": 48758, "statNetMigration": 171000 }, "headline": { "eyebrow": "Immigration system statistics · year ending March 2026", "heading": "What the official figures cover, and what they do not", "intro": "In the year ending March 2026, the Home Office granted 728,070 entry clearance visas across the three main non-visit routes (work, study and family), a fall of 44 per cent from the combined calendar year peak of 1,297,963 in 2023. In the same period 93,525 people claimed asylum in the UK, 128,300 people received an initial decision (a grant rate of 39 per cent for main applicants, down from 49 per cent the previous year), and 48,758 people were awaiting an initial decision at the end of the period. Separately, the Office for National Statistics estimates UK net migration at 171,000 for the year ending December 2025, down from 331,000 the year before." }, "visas": { "eyebrow": "Visas", "heading": "Entry clearance visas granted, by route", "intro": "Work, study and family visas are the three main non-visit routes into the UK. Visitor visas (over 2.2 million in the year ending March 2026) and short term routes are excluded from the totals below because they do not grant long term residence. Figures are entry clearance visas granted (people, not applications), UK wide.", "rows": [ { "name": "Work visas", "ye2025": 303715, "ye2026": 252775, "pctChange": -16.8 }, { "name": "Study visas", "ye2025": 425692, "ye2026": 412825, "pctChange": -3.0 }, { "name": "Family visas", "ye2025": 75649, "ye2026": 62470, "pctChange": -17.4 } ], "combinedYe2026": 728070, "peakYear": "2023", "peakValue": 1297963, "changeSincePeakPct": -43.9, "note": "Combined work, study and family visas peaked in calendar year 2023 at 1,297,963 and have fallen 44 per cent to the year ending March 2026. Study visas alone peaked a year earlier, in 2022, at 623,698. Source: Home Office table Vis_01, checked directly against table Vis_02 (applications and outcomes)." }, "asylum": { "eyebrow": "Asylum", "heading": "Claims, decisions and the backlog", "intro": "Asylum applicants are a small subset of people arriving in or coming to the UK. The figures below cover the whole pipeline: people claiming asylum, the initial decisions made on those claims, and the backlog of people still waiting for a first decision.", "claims": 93525, "decisions": 128300, "grants": 48581, "refusals": 79719, "withdrawals": 16901, "grantRatePct": "39%", "grantRatePriorYearPct": "49%", "peopleAwaiting": 48758, "casesAwaiting": 35744, "backlogChangePct": -55.5, "durationRows": [ { "label": "Less than 3 months", "value": 12833 }, { "label": "3 months to less than 6 months", "value": 7857 }, { "label": "6 months to less than 12 months", "value": 10400 }, { "label": "12 months or more", "value": 17668 } ], "note": "'People receiving initial decisions' and the grants/refusals that make it up cover main applicants and dependants together. The published 'grant rate at initial decision' is calculated by the Home Office on main applicants only and excludes withdrawals and administrative outcomes, so it will not exactly match grants divided by decisions above; both are shown as published, not recalculated. Source: Home Office tables Asy_00a and Asy_03a." }, "returns": { "eyebrow": "Returns", "heading": "Returns and enforced removals", "intro": "Returns from the UK cover everyone who left, for any immigration reason, not only people who had claimed asylum. The asylum related figures below are a subset of the totals.", "enforcedTotal": 9723, "enforcedRemovals": 6934, "voluntaryTotal": 29284, "allReturnsTotal": 39007, "asylumEnforced": 3475, "asylumVoluntary": 8443, "asylumTotal": 11918, "note": "39,007 people returned from the UK in the year ending March 2026 (9,723 enforced, 29,284 voluntary), of whom 11,918 were asylum related. Source: Home Office tables Ret_01 and Ret_05." }, "accommodation": { "eyebrow": "Asylum accommodation", "heading": "Asylum seekers in receipt of support, including hotels", "intro": "People with an open asylum claim who would otherwise be destitute can receive Home Office support, most commonly housing. The figures below are a snapshot at the end of the period, not a flow over the year.", "supportTotal": 97519, "hotels": 20885, "hotelsSharePct": 21.4, "hotelsPriorYear": 32326, "section95": 92161, "section4": 4745, "section98": 613, "note": "97,519 asylum seekers were in receipt of Home Office support at the end of March 2026, of whom 20,885 (21.4 per cent) were in hotel accommodation, down from 32,326 a year earlier. Source: Home Office tables Asy_00a and Asy_09a." }, "smallBoats": { "eyebrow": "Small boat arrivals", "heading": "People arriving on small boats across the Channel", "intro": "This series counts arrivals by the date people were detected crossing the Channel, from the Home Office's operational small boats data. It is provisional and may differ from the finalised asylum claims by route of entry statistics below, which count by the date of the asylum claim, not the date of arrival.", "yearlyRows": [ { "year": "2018", "value": 299 }, { "year": "2019", "value": 1843 }, { "year": "2020", "value": 8462 }, { "year": "2021", "value": 28526 }, { "year": "2022", "value": 45755 }, { "year": "2023", "value": 29437 }, { "year": "2024", "value": 36816 }, { "year": "2025", "value": 41472 } ], "ytd2026": 13007, "ytdAsOfDate": "23 July 2026", "totalSince2018": 205617, "claimsBasedYe2026": 38980, "note": "205,617 people have arrived on small boats since data collection began in 2018, including 13,007 so far in 2026 as of 23 July 2026. This is a different count, on a different basis, to the 38,980 asylum claims linked to small boat arrivals in the asylum claims by route of entry table for the year ending March 2026: that table uses the date of the asylum claim, and undergoes fuller quality assurance as finalised official statistics, while this arrivals series is provisional operational data. Source: Home Office 'Small boat activity in the English Channel', table SB_01." }, "netMigration": { "eyebrow": "Net migration · a different publisher, a different measure", "heading": "ONS long term international migration", "intro": "Net migration is published by the Office for National Statistics, not the Home Office, and is built from a different methodology (population survey and administrative data modelling, covering everyone who moves for 12 months or more, for any reason). It should not be compared directly, or added, to the Home Office visa or asylum figures above.", "immigration": 813000, "emigration": 642000, "net": 171000, "netPriorYear": 331000, "netPeak": 944000, "netPeakPeriod": "year ending March 2023", "note": "UK net migration was 171,000 in the year ending December 2025 (provisional), down from 331,000 the year before and from a recorded peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023 period. This is total immigration (moving to the UK for 12 months or more, from 813,000) minus total emigration (642,000), covering all nationalities and all reasons for migration. Source: ONS Long-term International Migration, provisional." }, "cost": { "eyebrow": "Cost", "heading": "What the Home Office spent on asylum support, resettlement and accommodation", "intro": "This is the only cost figure on this page verified against a primary official document. It is the whole 'Asylum Support, Resettlement and Accommodation' business group within the Home Office, not accommodation or hotels alone, and it is not a cost per person.", "actual2025_26Bn": 4.18, "budget2025_26Bn": 4.33, "actual2024_25Bn": 4.51, "actual2023_24Bn": 5.42, "note": "Home Office Resource DEL spending on the Asylum Support, Resettlement and Accommodation business group was £4.18 billion in 2025-26, against a budget of £4.33 billion, down from £4.51 billion in 2024-25 and £5.42 billion in 2023-24. This business group also covers resettlement schemes and administration, not accommodation alone, and this is UK government departmental spending, not a per person cost. Source: Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2025 to 2026." }, "questions": { "eyebrow": "Open questions", "heading": "What the published data does not settle", "items": [ "Home Office asylum appeals data has not been updated beyond the year ending March 2023 in this release, because of a transition to a new immigration caseworking system; there is no published, quality assured figure for how many appeals have been lodged or decided since then.", "The Annual Report and Accounts publishes total departmental spending on the whole asylum support, resettlement and accommodation business group; it does not separately publish a verified cost for hotel accommodation alone, or a cost per person, so neither can be shown here.", "The small boats arrivals series is provisional operational data which the Home Office itself says may differ from the finalised quality assured statistics, and the gap between the two series (this page shows both) has not been reconciled by the Home Office.", "Grant rates at initial decision are calculated by the Home Office on main applicants only, while the headline claims and decisions totals include dependants; the two are not on a matching basis and cannot be used to recompute one another." ] }, "crossLinks": [ { "slug": "public-spending", "label": "Where every pound goes: UK public spending" } ], "sources": [ { "name": "Home Office, Immigration system statistics, year ending March 2026", "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2026" }, { "name": "Home Office, Immigration system statistics data tables (visas, asylum, returns summary tables)", "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables" }, { "name": "Home Office, Small boat activity in the English Channel (time series)", "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats" }, { "name": "ONS, Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending December 2025", "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0", "url": "https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/latest" }, { "name": "Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2025 to 2026", "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2025-to-2026" } ], "caveats": [ "Visas granted, asylum claims, small boat arrivals and net migration are four different measures with different scopes, time bases and publishers. They must never be added together or treated as interchangeable; see 'How to read this' above.", "Asylum appeals: the Home Office states that appeals data for April 2023 onwards was unavailable at the point this release was compiled, due to the transition to a new immigration caseworking system. The most recent published appeals figures cover the year ending March 2023; no more recent figure exists in this release.", "The 'grant rate at initial decision' published by the Home Office is calculated on main applicants only and excludes withdrawals and administrative outcomes. The 'people receiving initial decisions', 'grants' and 'refusals' figures above include dependants, so dividing them will not reproduce the published grant rate exactly.", "Small boat arrivals (table SB_01) are provisional operational Home Office data, updated weekly, and the Home Office itself notes they may differ from the finalised, quality assured 'asylum claims by route of entry' statistics, which count by date of claim rather than date of arrival. Both series are shown, clearly labelled.", "Net migration is published by the Office for National Statistics, not the Home Office, using population and administrative data modelling rather than immigration casework records. All figures are provisional and subject to revision, including in prior years, as ONS improves its methodology.", "Scope: visas, asylum and returns figures are UK wide. Small boat arrivals data relates to crossings of the English Channel into the UK. Net migration figures from ONS are UK wide. The Home Office cost figure covers UK government departmental spending only.", "The cost figure shown is the whole Home Office 'Asylum Support, Resettlement and Accommodation' business group, which also funds resettlement schemes and administration, not hotel or accommodation costs alone, and is not a cost per person. No verified hotel only or per person cost was found in a primary official document, so none is shown.", "All figures for the year ending March 2026, and the small boats series, are the latest available at the time of writing and some are marked provisional [p] by the Home Office or ONS; they are subject to revision in later releases." ] }