Migration, immigration, net migration and asylum are different things, counted in different ways, over different periods. This site shows what each figure actually measures, and what it does not.
Asylum is one route among several. Among non-EU+ arrivals, meaning people who are neither British nor nationals of the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland, and which is the only basis the reason split is published on, study and work were both larger in the most recent year. What share of immigration is asylum.
It is arrivals minus departures, a balance between two much larger numbers. Why net migration is not a count of arrivals.
Permission is not a journey. Some visas are never used, and some are extensions for people already here. What a visa grant counts.
Each figure below states what it counts and over what period, because without those two things a number on this subject is not information. Each also shows its source, when that source was published, and this site's own confidence grade for it. The grade is our judgement about how far the figure can be relied on, not the publisher's.
171,000 people
year ending December 2025
Net migration nearly halved over the year to December 2025, from a revised 331,000 the previous year, mainly because work-related immigration fell by nearly half. ONS says this level was last seen when the new immigration system was introduced in early 2021. These figures are provisional and ONS revises them as more data arrives.
85,891 people
year ending June 2026
This counts people, not cases, which is why two figures appear: see people, main applicants and cases. It relates to 69,848 main-applicant applications, down 20% on the previous 12 months, but the figure remains high by historical standards. The single largest nationality was Pakistan (about 10%).
40,168 people
as at 30 June 2026
A stock, not an intake: it is the queue on one date, and it has fallen sharply from its peak of 175,457 in June 2023. It counts people including dependants; the same queue counted as main-applicant cases is about a fifth smaller. This is one of three separate queues, and the appeals queue has moved the other way, from 59,925 at 30 June 2025 to 90,341 at 30 June 2026, so there is no single number for 'the backlog'.
Figures quoted above also come from Tribunals statistics quarterly (HMCTS / Ministry of Justice).
93,293 people
as at 30 June 2026
Also a stock, a count on one day rather than over a year. It includes people at every stage of the system, some waiting since well before this year, so it is not a count of recent arrivals. It excludes unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, who are supported by local authorities. No UK-wide count of those children in care is published beside this figure; what the Home Office does publish is that 4,275 asylum claims were made by unaccompanied children in the year to June 2026, which is a year's claims and not a count of anyone being supported today.
41,472 people
calendar year 2025
This was the second-highest annual total on record (the peak was 45,774 in 2022) and 13% higher than 2024. It is a calendar-year count, so it does not line up with the year-ending-June figures elsewhere on this site, which give a different number for the same route.
16%
2021/22 Census
About 10.7 million people, or roughly one in six residents, were born abroad at the 2021/22 Census, up from about 9% in 2004. ONS's provisional rolled-forward estimate put the share at about 18.9% by mid-2024, but that is a statistic in development. Neither is accredited: no UK-wide foreign-born figure is.
Figures quoted above also come from ONS: Long-term international migration.
£4.9 billion
financial year 2024-25
The NAO notes this total does not capture all costs, particularly those falling on local authorities, so it understates the true system-wide cost. Most of it was accommodation and support (£3.4 billion), of which hotels were £2.1 billion, that last figure from the Home Office's own annual accounts rather than from the NAO.
Figures quoted above also come from Home Office: Annual Report and Accounts.
245,520 grants
year ending June 2026
Down 4% on the previous year, from 257,070. Naturalisation accounted for 171,435 of the grants and registration for 74,085. Applications rose over the same period, from 270,254 to 315,224, so grants and demand are moving in opposite directions.
They do not all cover the same period, and they do not all count the same kind of thing. Some count people, one counts grants, one is a share of the population and one is money spent. Set out together, the periods are:
Comparing a figure from one of those windows with a figure from another, and calling the difference a change, is not valid.
How every figure on this site is sourced and recorded.
Where a claim misuses a definition, a denominator or a time period, we say so, and we apply the same test in every direction.
No. Net migration is immigration minus emigration. It is a balance between two much larger numbers, not a count of arrivals.
No. Asylum applicants were around 14% of non-EU+ arrivals in the year ending December 2025. Non-EU+ is a nationality grouping rather than a route: people who are not British and not nationals of the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland. Study and work were both larger.
Not established as a general claim. Pre-Brexit studies found fiscal effects smaller than 1% of GDP in magnitude, but the results differ substantially by migrant group, period, comparison and method. There is no equivalent estimate covering the whole post-Brexit immigration system.
This page was last reviewed on . Its figures are not a live count; every one was checked against its source on or after .