National statistics

How many people come to the UK each year (including visitors)?

Published 24 November 2022

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Data relate to the year ending September 2022 and all comparisons are with the calendar year 2019 (unless indicated otherwise), reflecting a comparison with the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Year ending comparisons that follow will include impacts resulting from the restrictions in place during this period of the pandemic.

1. Passenger arrivals to the UK

There were an estimated 95.9 million passenger arrivals from outside the Common Travel Area (CTA) in the year ending September 2022 (including returning UK residents). This was more than 4 times (+357%) as many as in the year ending September 2021 (21.0 million), when travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic were still in place. However, the latest number is only around two thirds of the total number of arrivals in 2019 (146.3 million), the period immediately before the COVID-19 outbreak.

2. Grants of Entry clearance visas to individuals outside the UK

Only certain nationalities (‘visa-nationals’) are required to obtain an entry clearance visa before coming to visit the UK, which is one reason why there are considerably more passenger arrivals than visas granted. There were 2,610,024 visas granted in the year ending September 2022, 18% fewer (-561,705) than calendar year 2019, primarily due to 1.2 million fewer grants of Visitor visas, although the total number of grants continues to increase in the aftermath of the global pandemic. Of the visas granted in the latest 12 months, 48% were to visit, 23% were under the study routes, 15% were under the work routes, 3% were for family reasons, and 11% for other reasons (including grants of leave on the Ukraine Schemes and BN(O) route).

Figure 1: Total entry clearance visas granted, years ending September 2013 to September 2022

Source: Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes – Vis_D02

Figure 2 shows that the total number of visas granted had been broadly constant between 2013 and 2016 at around 2.5 million per year and then rose steadily to a high of 3.2 million in 2019. The number then fell significantly due the COVID-19 pandemic, to below one million, but has increased in the last year as international travel and other restrictions have been lifted.

3. Arrival Patterns during the 2020-22 COVID-19 pandemic

Following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic the Home Office published statistics to provide a record of air travel arrivals to the UK over a period when travel was severely curtailed.

Air arrivals to the UK fell sharply in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, falling from 7.1 million in January 2020 to 112,300 in April 2020 following the start of the first UK lockdown. This was only around 1% of the number of arrivals by air in April 2019. Air travel continued to remain very low between April and June 2020, at fewer than 200,000 air arrivals per month. Around 40% of those arrivals were British citizens, and a proportion of those travelling on a foreign passport will have also been resident in the UK.

Figure 2: Rolling weekly air passenger arrivals to the UK, January 2019 to June 2022

Source: Air passenger arrivals data tables, June 2022 - Air_01

As can be seen in Figure 2, there was an increase in the number of arrivals in the summer of 2020, but numbers in the peak of summer (August 2020) were still 74% lower than the same month in 2019. After the summer, air arrivals decreased again due to a combination of tightened restrictions towards the end of 2020 and the typical seasonal patterns in arrivals, which are lower in winter months. Air arrivals began to increase from summer of 2021 and all remaining travel restrictions were phased out in the first few months of 2022. Air travel to the UK has since increased, although remains slightly below pre-pandemic levels. It reached a 2 year high of 8,366,800 in the month of June 2022, just 22% below the figure for June 2019.

Further information about these statistics can be found in the last edition of the report ‘Statistics relating to passenger arrivals since the COVID-19 outbreak, August 2022’ published in August 2022. Further updates for air arrival data will be included in this chapter on passenger arrivals, as new border statistics systems are introduced over the course of the coming year.

4. Visitors to the UK

Many nationalities, including US nationals do not normally require a visa to visit the UK; consequently, there are considerably fewer Visitor visas granted than visitor arrivals. Nonetheless, from those nationalities required to obtain a visa before visiting the UK, in the year ending September 2022 there were 1,669,562 applications for Visitor visas, 39% fewer than the calendar year 2019, reflecting the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the same period, there were 1,256,998 Visitor visas granted, 48% fewer than calendar year 2019, with the largest falls seen for Chinese (down 595,986 or 93%) and Indian (down 131,283 or 26%) visitors. Indian nationals now account for the highest proportion (30%) of Visitor visas granted, of those nationalities who require a visa. They have overtaken China who were the largest nationality pre-pandemic, accounting for over a quarter (27%) of grants in 2019 but only 4% in the year ending September 2022. Nigerian (6%), South African (6%) and Pakistani (6%) nationals were the second, third and fourth largest Visitor visa nationalities in the year ending September 2022.

Additional information on visitors to the UK is published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in its publication ‘Overseas travel and tourism statistics’.

5. Visa schemes for Ukrainians

During March 2022, the UK Government introduced 2 new visa routes to allow persons affected by the crisis in Ukraine to come to the UK. Introduced on 4 March 2022, the Ukraine Family Scheme allows applicants to join family members or extend their stay in the UK. The Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme was introduced on 18 March 2022 and allows Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the UK if they have a named sponsor under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme.

Further information can be found in the ‘Statistics on Ukrainians in the UK’ chapter.

6. British National Overseas (BN(O)) route

On 31 January 2021, the UK Government introduced a new immigration route for British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status holders from Hong Kong, providing the opportunity for them and their family members to live, work and study in the UK. Data for in country applications is taken from management information and has been rounded to the nearest hundred. Detailed datasets for out of country applications and grants in this route can be found in entry clearance visa applications and outcomes under the BN(O) route visa type.

There have been a total of 150,600 applications for the BN(O) route since its introduction on 31 January 2021 up to the end of September 2022.

In July to September 2022, there were 10,100 applications for the BN(O) route, with 9,420 out of country applications, and 600 in country applications. Of the total, 6,300 applications relate to main applicants and 3,800 relate to dependants.

There have been a total of 121,193 grants of out of country BN(O) visas made between 31 January 2021 and 30 September 2022, and a total of 23,383 grants of in country BN(O) visas made between 31 January 2021 and 30 September 2022.

In July to September 2022, there were 10,689 grants of out of country BN(O) visas, of which 6,373 were for main applicants and 4,316 were for dependants. There were 763 grants of in country BN(O) visas made in July to September of 2022, of which 338 were main applicants and 425 were dependants.

There were 90 out-of-country BN(O) visa refusals, and 103 in-country BN(O) visa refusals in July to September of 2022.

As expected, since the route launched the majority of grants (63%) were to BN(O) and/or Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) passport holders, with a further 36% being Chinese passport holders. For main applicants, 92% were HKSAR/BN(O) passport holders. For dependants, 76% were Chinese passport holders, and 22% were HKSAR/BN(O) passport holders.

7. About these statistics

The statistics in this section provide an indication of the number of people who enter the UK.

The data do not show whether, or when, an individual arrived in the UK, what they did on arrival to the UK or how long they stayed in the UK.

Many nationalities do not normally require a visa to visit the UK. As a result, they will be counted in the passenger arrivals data but not in the visa data. A list of designated nationalities referred to as ‘visa nationals’ who do require a visa in order to visit the UK can be found in Immigration Rules Appendix V: visitor rules.

For several reasons, data on passenger arrivals are not directly comparable with data on Entry clearance visas granted. A summary of what each dataset counts is provided in sections 7.1 and 7.2.

7.1 Passenger arrivals

Data on passenger arrivals relate to the number of arrivals into the UK. The data include British, EEA and Swiss nationals, as well as non-EEA nationals. For non-EEA nationals who are subject to immigration controls, more detailed information is available on their nationality and purpose of their journey up until 2018.

Passenger arrivals are counted each time an individual enters the UK. Where an individual enters the UK more than once in a period, they will be counted each time they enter (but if they arrive each time on the same visa, they will be counted once in the visas data).

Visitor arrivals data included in this topic are based on landing cards completed as people cross the border. In light of the introduction of new digital systems at the border, the use of landing cards was reviewed (see Landing cards). The review resulted in the decision to remove the need for non-EEA nationals to complete a landing card on arrival into the UK. Further data relating to visitor arrivals will not be available until an alternative method of collection is developed.

7.2 Entry clearance visas

Data on entry clearance visas in this section refer to the number of visas granted for all reasons within the period. References in the statistics to ‘visas’ will also include entry clearance ‘permits’, such as EEA and EU Settlement Scheme Family permits, or Frontier Worker permits. If an individual was granted multiple visas in a given period, this will be counted as multiple grants in the statistics. If an individual entered the UK multiple times within the period for which a visa was valid, this will be counted as one grant in the visa statistics, but multiple arrivals in the passenger arrivals data.

Year-on-year comparisons of the number of decisions can be affected by quarterly fluctuations in the data. Such fluctuations can be examined in more detail in the quarterly data that are available in the published tables.

Several known factors may have affected the number of applications and outcomes of visit-related visas over time. For example, the Home Office launched a two-year Chinese visa pilot in January 2016 for Chinese nationals. The increase in longer-term Visitor visas may affect the number of subsequent re-applications by Chinese nationals.

More information on non-visitor arrival and visa data by category is included in ʻWhy do people come to the UK? To work’, ʻWhy do people come to the UK? To study’ and ʻWhy do people come to the UK? For family reasons’.

In January 2021, the UK Government introduced a new immigration route for British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status holders, providing the opportunity for them and their family members to live, work and study in the UK. This route opened on 31 January 2021 and is open to individuals who hold a BN(O) passport and are, or have recently been, resident in Hong Kong, and their dependants.

7.3 Landing cards

On 20 May 2019, the Home Office removed the need for all non-EEA travellers to fill in landing cards upon arrival in the UK and expanded the use of ePassport gates to 7 more countries. As anticipated in the original consultation, ahead of new electronic data sources being developed, the withdrawal of landing cards has resulted in a temporary loss to the passenger arrivals data broken down by nationality and reason for travel. Data on the total number of passenger arrivals will continue to be available as this comes from a different source. Further information can be found in the user guide.

8. Data tables

• Sponsorship summary tables
• Detailed sponsorship datasets
• Entry clearance visas summary tables
• Detailed Entry clearance visas datasets
• Admissions summary tables

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