The claim: Net migration is the number of people who entered the UK.
- The short answer
- No. Net migration is immigration minus emigration. It is a balance between two much larger numbers, not a count of arrivals.
How to cite this: Net migration is the number of people who entered the UK.
- ONS, Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending December 2025. Cited for Net migration (long-term international migration). Total long-term immigration (inflow). Total long-term emigration (outflow). Net migration (previous year, revised, for trend). Published . https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingdecember2025. Checked by us on .
- ONS, Long-term international immigration, emigration and net migration flows, provisional: year ending December 2025, Table 1. Cited for Net migration, year ending December 2023. Total long-term immigration, year ending December 2023. Total long-term immigration, year ending December 2024. Total long-term emigration, year ending December 2023. Total long-term emigration, year ending December 2024. Published . https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/datasets/longterminternationalimmigrationemigrationandnetmigrationflowsprovisional/yearendingdecember2025/may2026publicationspreadsheet.xlsx (spreadsheet download). Checked by us on .
Via UK Migration Explorer, https://ukmigrationexplorer.org/common-claims/net-migration-is-arrivals/.
What the data says
In the year ending December 2025, an estimated 813,000 people arrived in the UK for the long term, and 642,000 people left. The difference between those two figures is 171,000, the net migration estimate.
So the headline number describes neither group of people. Far more than 171,000 people arrived. A different, also large, group left.
Why the claim is misleading
It treats a subtraction as a headcount. Nobody is "a net migrant": the figure is the gap between two flows, and it tells you nothing on its own about the size of either.
The practical consequence is that net migration can change even when the number arriving does not, because emigration moves independently. Between the year ending December 2023 and the year ending December 2024, net migration fell from 848,000 to 331,000. Immigration over the same period fell from 1,441,000 to 1,012,000. Emigration went the other way, rising from 593,000 to 680,000: more people leaving, not fewer arriving.
A fall in net migration is therefore consistent with arrivals falling, staying flat, or in principle rising. Which of those it is depends on what emigration does at the same time. Reading the net figure as an arrivals figure hides all of that.
One further caution: these are estimates, and they are revised. The year ending December 2024 figure was first published as 431,000, revised to about 345,000, and now stands at 331,000, largely because ONS revised its estimate of British emigration upwards. The estimate fell because ONS brought in new data and methods, not because the 2024 period itself changed.
Better questions to ask
- How many people arrived, and how many left?
- Has this changed because arrivals fell, or because departures rose?
- Is this a first estimate or a revised one?
Source notes
Office for National Statistics, long-term international migration, provisional, year ending December 2025, published 21 May 2026. Official statistics in development; estimates are provisional and have been revised substantially in recent releases.
Long-term migration counts moves of 12 months or more. It does not count visits, and it is not the same as visas granted.
The 2023 and 2024 comparison above uses ONS's current series, in which both years appear on the same methodological basis. ONS rounds its figures, so the components do not always sum exactly to the published net figure.