Illegal working and enforcement activity to the end of December 2025: by illegal working sector
Updated 5 February 2026
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This note provides statistics relating to Immigration Enforcement activity to tackle illegal employment in the UK. It is intended to provide the public with clear and timely information in an area of high public interest, and is supplementary to the previous data release on 12 January 2026 (see notes below).
A time series of illegal working visits and arrests by calendar year between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2025 can be seen below. The tables are ordered by the number of illegal working visits carried out in 2025 and lists those sectors for which 100 or more illegal working visits were carried out in that year. During 2025, 2,438 civil penalties were issued to employers meaning they face significant fines of over £130 million.
Illegal working visits by visit category
| Visit category | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants, takeaways and cafes | 2,623 | 655 | 446 | 1,522 | 2,269 | 2,695 | 3,559 |
| Food, drink and tobacco retail | 404 | 116 | 188 | 601 | 1092 | 1351 | 2,570 |
| Beauty industry (nail bars, tanning salons, barbers) | <5 | 163 | 466 | 629 | 1,105 | 1,865 | |
| Residential | 46 | 181 | 721 | 1,008 | 1,331 | ||
| Car washes | 307 | 170 | 129 | 427 | 541 | 619 | 808 |
| Warehousing, distribution and delivery services | 149 | 63 | 21 | 63 | 181 | 203 | 796 |
| Retail (non-food) | 1,486 | 409 | 149 | 168 | 308 | 415 | 574 |
| Construction | 298 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 140 | 118 | 290 |
| All others | 739 | 266 | 151 | 288 | 583 | 608 | 1,038 |
| Grand total | 6,006 | 1,732 | 1,345 | 3,768 | 6,464 | 8,122 | 12,831 |
Illegal working arrests by visit category
| Visit category | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants, takeaways and cafes | 1,527 | 299 | 208 | 772 | 1,559 | 1,922 | 2,523 |
| Food, drink and tobacco retail | 186 | 28 | 47 | 202 | 435 | 821 | 823 |
| Beauty industry (nail bars, tanning salons, barbers) | 42 | 117 | 326 | 659 | 1,052 | ||
| Residential | 16 | 73 | 563 | 821 | 993 | ||
| Car washes | 90 | 39 | 22 | 158 | 518 | 592 | 664 |
| Warehousing, distribution and delivery services | 167 | 39 | 13 | 90 | 270 | 349 | 1,106 |
| Retail (non-food) | 441 | 119 | 29 | 62 | 100 | 146 | 226 |
| Construction | 407 | 53 | 60 | 77 | 218 | 165 | 588 |
| All others | 335 | 119 | 70 | 163 | 439 | 172 | 1,033 |
| Grand total | 3,153 | 696 | 507 | 1,714 | 4,428 | 5,647 | 9,008 |
Notes
The data and statistics contained within this notice are provisional and were taken from live operational systems on 22 January 2026. As a result, data may differ from previously published numbers and are subject to further revision and change. This may occur due to open records being updated and closed, or as a result of regular data quality and assurance exercises being undertaken.
Note that the visit categories were updated and rationalised for 2021 onwards, as such the data for 2019 and 2020 has been matched against the current relevant category where necessary.
In order to protect individual identification, any count that is less than 5 has been replaced with “<5”.
Note that the civil penalties issued within this period may have been as a result of visits which took place in the preceding year, or years, due to the time lags in cases being referred and considered and statutory deadlines for employers to respond to requests for further information. Therefore, no direct correlation should be made to enforcement visits that have taken place in the same period.
Note that not all of these civil penalties are as a result of an enforcement visit, some employers have received a penalty following an intelligence referral from another department or as a result of routine data sharing with HMRC.
The volume and value of illegal working civil penalties data for 1 January 2016 to 30 September 2025 is contained within the Migration transparency data, updated on a quarterly basis: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (Immigration Enforcement data: July to September; tab CP_02). The next full quarterly civil penalty dataset update, to 31 December 2025, is scheduled to be released late February 2026.