Accredited official statistics

Summary of latest statistics

Published 21 August 2025

Back to ‘Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2025’ content page.

This Accredited Official Statistics publication provides comprehensive statistics on the operation of the UK immigration system.

The UK immigration system undertakes a wide range of activities including issuing visas to those outside of the UK, changes to visas, and grants of settlement and citizenship to those already in the UK, plus providing safe and legal (humanitarian) routes of entry, as well as granting asylum and carrying out enforcement action. Figure 1 illustrates the different aspects of the immigration system and provides the numbers of people dealt with by each in the latest year.

Figure 1: Summary of the UK immigration system, year ending June 2025

Notes:

1. This diagram is a simplification and doesn’t include all parts of the immigration system, such as people crossing the border who do not require a visa, or irregular arrivals. Data in different parts of the immigration system is not always comparable.

1. How many people come to the UK?

In the year ending June 2025 there were 134.8 million arrivals to the UK. The majority (56%) were British nationals. Of the non-British arrivals, most will be short-term visitors, with smaller numbers arriving for other reasons such as work, study, family and humanitarian.

• there were 2.2 million visitor visas granted and 19,000 transit visas in the year ending June 2025
• in addition there 13.4 million Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs) issued since the launch of the scheme (October 2023) up to the end of June 2025, which allow eligible individuals to visit the UK for short periods
• people also come to the UK for other reasons, such as work, study, family and humanitarian reasons, and usually require an entry clearance visa – there were 852,000 visas issued for a non-visit reason

Figure 2: Total numbers of visas granted in key categories and detected irregular arrivals, in year ending June 2025

Source: Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes - Vis_D02; Safe and legal (humanitarian) routes summary tables - Hum_01; Irregular migration to the UK - Irr_D01

For further details see ‘How many people come to the UK each year?’.

2. Why do people come to the UK - Work?

• work-related visa grants have decreased over the last 2 years, largely due to the decline in main applicants and dependants issued Health and Care and Skilled Worker visas
• there were 183,000 visas granted to main applicants in all work categories in the year ending June 2025, 36% fewer than the year ending June 2024, but 33% more than in 2019
• there were 21,000 ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas granted to main applicants in the year ending June 2025; the number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas issued to migrant workers in a Caring Personal Service occupation fell by 88% to 7,378; nursing professionals fell by 80% to 3,080 in the year ending June 2025
• the number of ‘Temporary Worker’ visas granted to main applicants in the year ending June 2025 was 78,000; this is broadly consistent with the last 3 years, but 90% higher than in 2019, largely due to the growth in the ‘Seasonal Worker’ route
• grants of an extension of stay in the UK onto work routes increased by 23% in the latest year; this corresponds with the rise in work visa grants observed in 2022 and 2023, as the larger number of individuals who initially entered on work visas in those years are now becoming eligible and choosing to extend their stay

For further details see ‘Why do people come to the UK - Work?’.

3. Why do people come to the UK - Study?

• there were 414,000 sponsored study visas granted to foreign students in the year ending June 2025, 4% fewer than in the year ending June 2024, but 54% more than in 2019
• in the year ending June 2025, visas issued to dependants of students were 81% lower at 18,000 compared to the year ending June 2024

For further details see ‘Why do people come to the UK - Study?’.

4. Why do people come to the UK - Family?

• in the year ended June 2025, there were 76,000 family visa applications, 23% fewer than the previous year primarily driven by a fall of 33% in partner visa applications
• in the same period, 71,000 family-related visas were granted, a 15% decrease from the previous year but almost double the number granted in the year to June 2022
• the growth of family visas has largely been driven by Partner visas, but in the most recent year the number of Partner visas granted has fallen by 27%
• in contrast to Partner visas, there has been an increase of ‘Refugee Family Reunion’ family visa grants in the latest year, from 16,000 to almost 21,000, their highest level since the series began in 2005; this is largely due to a higher number of individuals granted refugee status in recent years

For further details see ‘Why do people come to the UK - Family?’.

5. How many people come to the UK via safe and legal (humanitarian) routes?

• there were 62,000 grants of leave offered via safe and legal (humanitarian) routes to come to, or remain in, the UK in the year ending June 2025, 33% fewer than the previous year, largely due to the reduction in visas and extensions granted on the Ukraine Scheme
• 7,400 refugees were resettled in the UK in the year ending June 2025, 88% of whom arrived through the Afghan Resettlement Programme

For further details see ‘How many people come to the UK via safe and legal (humanitarian) routes?’.

6. How many people come to the UK irregularly?

• there were 49,000 irregular arrivals detected in the year ending June 2025, 27% more than the previous year
• small boat arrivals accounted for 43,000 (88%) of the total irregular arrivals in the year ending June 2025, 38% more arrivals than the previous year but slightly fewer than the peak in 2022 (46,000)
• Afghans were the most common nationality amongst small boat arrivals in the year ending June 2025, accounting for 15% of small boat arrivals (6,400)

For further details see ‘How many people come to the UK irregularly?’. For more recent data on daily small boat arrivals see ‘Small boat activity in the English Channel’.

7. Asylum claims, outcomes and system

Figure 3: Asylum claims, outcomes and people awaiting an initial decision, between 2002 and year ending June 2025

Source: Asylum claims and decisions – Asy_D01, Asy_D02 and Asy_D03

7.1 How many people claim asylum in the UK?

• 111,000 people claimed asylum in the year ending June 2025, 14% more than the previous year and higher than the previous recorded peak of 103,000 in 2002
• the number of people claiming asylum has almost doubled (+90%) since 2021
• half of asylum seekers arrived through irregular routes, while a further 37% of claimants had previously arrived in the UK on a visa
• in the year ending March 2025, the UK received the fifth largest number of asylum seekers in the EU+, after Germany, Spain, Italy and France

For further details see ‘How many people claim asylum in the UK?’.

7.2 How many people are granted asylum in the UK?

• 110,000 people received initial decisions on asylum claims in the year ending June 2025, 8% fewer than the previous year, but a higher number of decisions than every year between 2003 and 2022
• almost half (48%) of the initial decisions to main applicants in the year ending June 2025 were grants, a smaller proportion than the 58% in the previous year

For further details see ‘How many people are granted asylum in the UK?’.

7.3 How many cases are in the UK asylum system?

• at the end of June 2025 there were 71,000 cases awaiting an initial decision, relating to 91,000 people, 18% fewer than at the end of June 2024
• the number of cases awaiting an initial decision is 47% lower than the peak at the end of June 2023 (134,000 cases)

For further details see ‘How many cases are there in the UK asylum system?’.

8. How many people are granted settlement or citizenship?

• there were 163,000 grants of settlement in the UK in the year ending June 2025, almost a fifth more than the previous year; although still below the peak in the year to September 2010 (242,000)
• individuals who had previously been granted leave to remain in the UK on a work route, made up the largest settlement category, a year-on-year increase of 19%. Almost three-quarters of the settlement grants in this category were to individuals who previously had been granted leave on the Skilled Worker route
• settlement granted to individuals previously granted refugee status or other forms of protection status increased by 17% in the year ending June 2025, compared to the previous year
• there has been a sharp increase in citizenship grants in recent years, with numbers rising from 129,000 in the year ending March 2021 to 257,000 in the year ending June 2025, which is also a 4% increase from the previous year

For further details see ‘How many people are granted settlement or citizenship?’.

9. How many grants of settlement are made via the EU Settlement Scheme?

• Settled status grants have remained relatively stable over the past two years, there were 335,000 grants of settled status in the year ending June 2025, a 3% decrease on the previous year
• there were 260,000 repeat applications of individuals granted settled status, 15% fewer compared to the previous year; this is due in part to the increasing number of applicants automatically transitioning to settled status, from pre-settled status, without the requirement to submit a further application
• an estimated 37,000 automated settled status grants have been issued since the introduction of the automated casework process in January 2025, with grants in quarter 2 (April to June) significantly increasing from quarter 1 (January to March)

For further details see ‘How many grants of settlement are made via the EU Settlement Scheme?’.

10. How many people are detained under immigration powers in the UK?

• 22,000 entered detention in the year ending June 2025, 14% higher than the previous year, continuing the recent upward trend; the increase in numbers of individuals entering detention may reflect the use of detention to facilitate the rising number of returns from the UK
• Albanians have been the most common nationality entering detention since 2022, but their numbers have been falling; numbers of Brazilian and Indian nationals have both doubled in the last year (up 91% and 108% respectively)

For further details see ‘How many people are detained under immigration powers in the UK?’.

11. How many people are returned from the UK?

• in the year ending June 2025 there were 9,100 enforced returns, an increase of 25% on the previous year, continuing an increase seen over the last 4 years
• Albanians continue to be the most common nationality for enforced returns during the latest year, as they have been for the last 4 years; however, returns of Albanians fell 9% during the year
• there were 5,300 FNO returns in the year ending June 2025, an increase of 16% compared to the previous year

For further details see ‘How many people are returned from the UK?’.

Additional data on returns under the current government, for the period 5 July 2024 to 4 July 2025, is available in a recent ad-hoc statistical release, including enforced, voluntary, FNOs under the Early Removal Scheme, as well as numbers of charter flights.

12. Additional Home Office migration statistics

The Home Office publishes a range of research and statistics which can be found on the migration analysis pages.

Details on the developments and future plans for Home Office ‘Immigration system statistics’ can be found in ‘Developments in migration statistics’.

12.1 Migration transparency

Figures on performance against service standards and processing times are published as part of the Home Office migration transparency. For further details see ‘Migration transparency data’.

12.2 Migrant journey

The Migrant journey report provides an analysis of the behaviour of migrants entering the UK immigration system under the main routes of entry to the UK and the common pathways leading to settlement. For the latest publication see ‘Migrant journey’.

We welcome your feedback

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