Estimates for UK immigration, emigration and net migration, year ending June 2012 to year ending December 2024. These are official statistics in development. To access the most up-to-date data for each time period, please use the most recently published dataset.

This release replaces the previous annual and quarterly publications Control of Immigration Statistics and the annual British Citizenship, following a public consultation. Each topic now has its own entry, links to these related reports can be found under the "additional links" section. There are a range of measures that can be used to understand trends in immigration to the United Kingdom for work, for those people who are subject to immigration control. These include: issues of visas for entry clearance, providing information about those intending to come to the United Kingdom for work; work-related admissions data, providing information on migrants at the border; number of people allocated national insurance numbers, giving an indication of migrants entering the labour market; and estimates on non-EU immigration from the International Passenger Survey on migrants intending to stay for at least a year for work purposes. In addition, grants of (in-country) extensions of stay for work purposes provide information on migrants in-country, while work-related grants of settlement provides a measure of longer term migration.

This release replaces the previous annual and quarterly publications Control of Immigration Statistics and the annual British Citizenship, following a public consultation. Each topic now has its own entry, links to these related reports can be found under the "additional links" section. There are a number of different measures that can be used to monitor numbers of people coming to the United Kingdom for study.

For those students who are subject to immigration control, administrative information is available on student visas and visa extensions, as well as records of students admitted. The International Passenger Survey (IPS), run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), provides estimates of all students arriving in the UK, with the ONS migration statistics focussing on those who intend to stay for a year or more. Research into students has also been published, for example Migrant Journey Analysis that involved linking records to give a more complete picture as to what happened to a group of students over a five year period.

These various statistics and research can appear to give different pictures of student immigration. Often this is because the latest data for different measures cover different time periods. In addition, they also count different aspects of the immigration process, with some showing intentions or permissions, whilst others show actual events.

Quarterly and annual statistics relating to information on border control and visas, asylum, managed migration, and enforcement and compliance. A new format for these statistics was introduced from second quarter 2011. See separate entry under immigration statistics at: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/immigration-statistics.

Nationality of migrants. containing estimates of Long-Term International Migration, International Passenger survey and pre 1975 archived data. annual table.

A research report which presents an improved method for estimating short-term immigration to local authorities (LAs) within England and Wales as well as experimental short-term migration inflow estimates for each local authority. Source agency: Office for National Statistics Designation: Experimental Official Statistics Language: English Alternative title: STIM

This dataset contains data on the amounts paid by refugees and migrants to facilitate their movement to Europe. The dataset has over 2400 records from 2000 to present, for refugees and migrants from locations mainly in African, the Middle East and Europe.

The estimates on the amount paid by refugees and migrants is based on the number of "detections" reported by European Member States to FRONTEX (before 2008: data from Clandestino which is compatible with said routes) and the median of various sources mentioning the prices of a crossing on a FRONTEX-defined route.

A 2011 report on Turkish refugees points out that one in 7 refugee or migrant do not pay for the journey (other accounts, like the Red Cross data set, show a higer rate of paying passengers - 97%). Therefore, a 15% discount was applied to the final results for all routes.

Prices are in 2014 euros (prices before 2014 have been corrected for inflation).

Database on research participants in the BRAD project. The Personal Data have been removed in order to make the identification of the research participants impossible. For Polish migrants in the UK, the database contains the information about the application to European Union Settlement Scheme.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The OECD International Migration database presents data showcasing flows and stocks of the total immigrant population and immigrant labour force, together with data on acquisition of nationality. This database contains annual data from 1980 onwards. Main Topics: The database covers: • international and population migration • immigration and immigrants • emigration and emigrants • asylum seekers by nationality • nationalities • educational attainment • employment and unemployment

The UK's decision to leave the EU has necessitated a wholesale rethink of UK immigration policy with the ending of free movement of workers. The motivations for this work then were to examine the immigration/worker protection boundary from a number of perspectives, with particular emphasis on the legal dimension. While understanding the developing EU and domestic (macro) perspective our aims at a micro level were to understand the legal problems EU citizens in low paid work in the UK were facing and how they resolve those problems. These legal problems were at times exacerbated by Brexit, particularly with the advent of the new digital EUSS (EU Settlement Scheme)- our research followed this in real time and recorded issues. One of our key findings and covered by the book published as a result of the dataset here is that of Pragmatic Law and the role of everyday community advice in the wider legal advice eco-system. This is an element of legal advice which to date had been little researched. Another key outcome was the contribution to literature on both EU free movement and citizenship studies, particularly in the context of vulnerable EU citizens.Our aim was to chart the experience and perceptions of EU migrants in the UK before, during and after Brexit to enable us to analyse the experience of EU migrants in seeking access to the social welfare system in the UK, the issues they have with immigration law and employment law, specifically the relationship between race and nationality discrimination and the Brexit process. We will seek to collect robust empirical evidence to establish whether the fact of Brexit, together with the policy changes, media pronouncements and political rhetoric, have an impact on both the experience of, and perceptions surrounding, the experience of EU migrants. This data collection consists of qualitative data, specifically interviews and focus groups. The data is place based: in a small town in the East of England called Great Yarmouth. Interviews were undertaken with EU citizens who had moved to the UK to work in low paid work- particularly in poultry factories. Interviews were semi structured to allow for conversations to flow organically. The data includes qualitative interviews with people (professionals) working in Great Yarmouth- particularly those providing frontline services such as health, debt advice, housing advice etc. It includes a mixture of transcripts or notes recorded. The accompanying excel file notes the date and the location where the interview/ focus group took place. Every effort has been made to anonymise the data. A snowball technique was used to recruit participants to interview, as well as in some instances a targeted approach to approaching relevant service providers we wanted to include e.g. health, housing etc. The data also includes focus groups undertaken with EU citizens living in the UK. Again every effort has been made to anonymise the data. Some focus groups were occupation based- for example only those working in poultry factories and some were nationality based for example Portuguese citizens only. All participants for focus groups were recruited by an advice agency working in Great Yarmouth which we were working with on this research. The data includes interviews with residents and the landlord of an HMO (house of multiple occupation) in Great Yarmouth. Again, every effort has been made to anonymise the participants and the location of the house. Participants were chosen based on their residency in the house. This was to help us understand housing conditions/ the private rent sector for migrant workers in the town.

Data exploring the overview of migrants in the UK labour market by region.

Number of migrants by decade of arrival to the United Kingdom. Includes all decades since 1970. Data shown for years 2004 to 2016.

Numbers are rounded to nearest thousand.

Figures are based on surveys and 95% confidence intervals are provided.

Special Licence Access data to the Annual Population Survey. Approved ONS Researchers only.

Residence permits data collection refers to residence permits as any authorisation issued by the authorities of a Member State allowing a third-country national (non-EU citizen) to stay legally on its territory. These statistics cover also some specific cases in which the third-country nationals have the right to be move to and stay in other EU Member States.

Data is based on administrative sources¹, provided mainly by the Ministries of Interior or related Immigration Agencies. Data are generally disseminated in July in the year following the reference year, subject to data availability and data quality.

Residence permits statistics is based on http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32007R0862" target="_blank">Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007 (Migration Statistics Regulation) as amended by the Regulation 2020/851 and it covers the following topics:

• the main RESPER data collection based on Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation
  • First residence permits;
  • Residence permits issued on the occasion of changing the immigration status or reason to stay;
  • Residence permits valid at the end of the year;
  • Long-term residence permits valid at the end of the year;
  • Long-term permits issued during the year.

• Statistics collected on voluntary basis
  • Residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status.

The definitions used for residence permits and other concepts (e.g. first permit) are presented in the section 3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions. The detailed data collection methodology is presented in Annex 9 of this metadata file.

Temporary protection status is considered of different administrative nature then the residence permits reported in RESPER data collection. Therefore, persons benefitting from temporary protection are not included in any of the Residence permits statistics. These persons are subject of another data collection on Temporary Protection (TP).

LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Residence data contain statistical information based on Article 6 of http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32007R0862" target="_blank">Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007. This legal framework refers to the initial residence permits data collection with 2008 first reference period (e.g. first residence permits; change of immigration status or reason to stay; all valid residence permits in the end of the year and long-term residence permits valid in the end of the year) and it provides also a general framework for newer data collections based on specific European legal acts (e.g. statistics on EU Blue Cards and statistics on single permits) or provided on voluntary basis (e.g. residence permits issued for family reunification with beneficiaries of protection status).

Regulation 2020/851 amending Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007 was recently implemented. The amendment introduced several changes to the statistics on Asylum and Managed Migration. Some data collections become mandatory starting with the 2021 reference period, while new statistics are subject to pilot studies for further assessing the feasibility of collecting these statistics.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Starting with the 2021 reference period, there were several improvements in the data collection, including the methodological aspects. These changes were introduced through the implementation of Regulation 2020/851 amending Council Regulation (CE) No 862 of 11 July 2007. More details are available in the Annex 9.

Starting from 2025, the residence permits and EU directives data collection now includes six metadata files in total. Countries are required to submit six distinct files. For those that have not yet provided the updated six files, the previous metadata format, included in the annex of this metadata file (Annex 10), remains available as a reference.

INDICATORS

The indicators presented in the table 'Long-term residents among all non-EU citizens holding residence permits by citizenship on 31 December (%)' are produced within the framework of the pilot study related to the integration of migrants in the Member States, following the Zaragoza Declaration.

The Zaragoza Declaration, adopted in April 2010 by EU Ministers responsible for immigrant integration issues, and approved at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 3-4 June 2010, called upon the Commission to undertake a pilot study to examine proposals for common integration indicators and to report on the availability and quality of the data from agreed harmonised sources necessary for the calculation of these indicators. In June 2010 the ministers agreed "to promote the launching of a pilot project with a view to the evaluation of integration policies, including examining the indicators and analysing the significance of the defined indicators taking into account the national contexts, the background of diverse migrant populations and different migration and integration policies of the Member States, and reporting on the availability and quality of the data from agreed harmonised sources necessary for the calculation of these indicators".

These indicators are produced on the basis of residence permit statistics collected by Eurostat on the basis of Article 6 of the Migration Statistics Regulation 862/2007. As a denominator data on the stock of all valid permits to stay at the end of each reporting year are used. As a numerator data on the stock of long-term residents are used. Two types of long term residents are distinguished in accordance with the residence permit statistics: EU long-term resident status (as regulated by the Council Directive 2003/109/EC) and the National long-term resident status (as regulated by the national legislation in the Member States).

DATA CONSISTENCY

The data providers should use the same methodological specifications provided by Eurostat and some collected tables from should be cross-consistent according to this methodology. However, consistency issues between tables exist due to some technical limitations (e.g. different data sources) or different methodology applied to each table (see the quality information from below or the national metadata files) or different point in time of producing each tables.

¹There are few exceptions referring to the situation in which the administrative registers cannot provide the required information and some estimations are made. For example, the statistics for the United Kingdom (2008-2019) use different data sources to those used in EU Member States and EFTA countries. For that reason, the statistics on residence permits published by Eurostat for UK may not be fully comparable with the statistics reported by other countries. Statistics for the United Kingdom are not based on records of residence permits issued (as the United Kingdom does not operate a system of residence permits), but instead relate to the numbers of arriving non-EU citizens permitted to enter the country under selected immigration categories. According to the United Kingdom authorities, data are estimated from a combination of information due to be published in the Home Office Statistical Bulletin 'Control of Immigration: Statistics, United Kingdom' and unpublished management information. The 'Other reasons' category includes: diplomat, consular officer treated as exempt from control; retired persons of independent means; all other passengers given limited leave to enter who are not included in any other category; non-asylum discretionary permissions. Another example is the data on stock of all valid residence permits for Denmark, see Annex 8 (Data quality of valid residence permits in Denmark).

This table contains figures on immigrants living in the Netherlands who have come to the Netherlands with a nationality of a country within the European Union (EU) or European Free Trade Association (EFTA). The figures refer to the reporting period 1999 to 2022. Data are broken down by gender, age group, nationality, derived migration target, naturalisation, socio-economic category and year of immigration. Immigrants from within the EU/EFTA do not need a residence permit from the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND). The derived migration target has been determined by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on the basis of activities carried out by the immigrant after immigration into the Netherlands. No derived migration goal has been determined for persons who have Dutch nationality. For persons who had the nationality of a non-EU/EFTA country at the time of immigration, the derived migration target is based on the permit of the IND. This table only includes immigrants who, at the time of immigration, were nationals of countries belonging to the EU or EFTA on 31 December. As the United Kingdom left the European Union from 31 January 2020, immigrants from the United Kingdom are therefore included in this table until 31 December 2019.

Immigrants from countries that joined the EU or EFTA after 1999 are included in this table from the year of accession. Immigrants from countries that left the EU or EFTA after 1999 are included in this table until the year of withdrawal. Example: immigrants from the United Kingdom are included in this table until 2019.

Data available from: 1999

Status of figures: The figures in this table are provisional. Subsequent information has been incorporated into the figures for the previous periods. As a result, small deviations with previously published figures are possible.

Amendments as at 31 October 2024: None. This is a new table.

When will there be new figures? The figures for 2023 will be published in October 2025.

Analysis of the current routes into the UK and the different ways that migrants are able to reach settlement.

This research examines the ways in which recent East European migration to the UK has been racialised. 48 in-depth face-to-face interviews were carried out with 25 individual Hungarian (among the first of 'A8' migrants to the UK) and 23 individual Romanian (among the second wave of 'A2' migrants to the UK) migrants in Bristol. Focus groups were also conducted with groups of Hungarian migrants (5 groups) and Romanian migrants (5 groups). These were done to understand the main differences in the racialisation of A8 and A2 migration, to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the migrants' experiences of exclusion and marginalisation, and to question the usefulness of the 'colour paradigm' for understanding and investigating racial phenomena. A self-completion follow-up questionnaire was used to also gain demographic data. Over the past several years, more than a million East Europeans have come to the UK. Most of these migrants have been channelled into low-skilled jobs (despite their higher qualifications). Most of them who stick around until 2011 will also likely tick 'white other' on the UK census form. But does being 'white' provide them any protections against the sorts of racism that previous immigrants to the UK have faced? The history of migration to the UK and elsewhere suggests that shared 'whiteness' offers few such protections. In many parts of the world, grievances associated with disadvantages are often experienced and described as 'racial' grievances, even when migrant and host nominally share the same 'race'. This research is thus interested in how, if at all, 'race' has been a factor in these recent migrations. The role of the government and media in disseminating (and legitimating) racialised understandings of migration has already received significant attention. Missing, however, is the perspective of the migrants themselves. This study aims to fill this gap with an in-depth investigation of the migrant perspective by comparing two understudied groups of migrants: Hungarians (representing those who arrived in 2004) and Romanians (representing those who arrived in 2007). 48 face-to-face in-depth interviews and 10 focus groups were carried out with Hungarian and Romanian migrants separately. A self-completion follow-up questionnaire was used to gain demographic data. Convenience sampling was used for this cross sectional (one-time) study.

In 2019, there were approximately 302,020 British citizens living in Spain, with a further 293,061 in Ireland and 176,672 in France. By comparison, there were only 604 British people living in Slovenia, the fewest of any European Union member state. As a member of the European Union, British citizens had the right to live and work in any EU member state. Although these rights were lost for most British citizens after the UK left the EU in 2020, Britons already living in EU states were able to largely retain their previous rights of residence. EU citizens living in the UK EU citizens living in the UK face the same dilemma that British nationals did regarding their legal status after Brexit. In the same year, there were 902,000 Polish citizens, 404,000 Romanians, and 322,000 people from the Republic of Ireland living in the UK in that year, along with almost two million EU citizens from the other 24 EU member states. To retain their rights after Brexit, EU citizens living in the UK were able to apply for the EU settlement scheme. As of 2025, there have been around 8.4 million applications to this scheme, with Romanian and Polish nationals the most common nationality at 1.87 million applications, and 1.27 million applications respectively. Is support for Brexit waning in 2024? As of 2025, the share of people in the UK who think leaving the EU was the wrong decision stood at 56 percent, compared with 31 percent who think it was the correct choice. In general, support for Brexit has declined since April 2021, when 46 percent of people supported Brexit, compared with 43 percent who regretted it. What people think Britain's relationship with the EU should be is, however, still unclear. A survey from November 2023 indicated that just 31 percent thought the UK should rejoin the EU, with a further 11 percent supporting rejoining the single market but not the EU. Only ten percent of respondents were satisfied with the current relationship, while nine percent wished to reduce ties even further.

This strand of research was carried out between January 2010 and October 2010 and focused on 61 interviews with the providers and users of East-Central European migrant labour. The fieldwork concentrated on the hospitality and food production and processing sectors and on case study areas in urban and rural England and Scotland. The aim of this part of the research was to gain an understating of employers’ and labour providers’ experiences of recruiting and employing East-Central European labour migrants. These sectors were selected as the focus of analysis because the Worker Registration Scheme indicates that A8 migrants predominantly engage in these parts of the economy. The project also investigated spatial, sectoral and temporal data from the Worker Registration Scheme. This showed that A8 migrants serve particular ‘functions’ in the UK, producing distinctive geographies of immigration. Explaining the uneven pattern of demand pointed to the differences, for example, between migrant labour deployed in the intensification of agricultural production and migrants used as flexible labour in construction. Analysis of the research evidence resulted in a new typology of recruitment and employment practices and a dynamic model of their spatial impacts. The research also shed light on how migrant labour is perceived and represented by UK employers. Theorisation of the knowledge practices of recruiters sheds new light on how cultural and social processes ‘produce’ and ‘reproduce’ migration geographies. This project explored labour market aspects of immigration flows , specifically A8 recruitment and employment patterns and how these changed between 2004 and the current recession. The research involved 70 interviews with labour providers (recruitment agencies) and users (employers) of migrant labour in the hospitality, food production and processing sectors across four UK study sites. This was complemented with a suite of interviews with policymakers, recruitment agencies and employers in Latvia. Since the accession of the A8 countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Estonia) to the European Union citizens from these countries have had the right to freely participate in the British labour market. As a consequence of significant disparities in earning potential, large numbers of A8 migrants have come to the UK, with nationals from these states constituting some of the largest foreign-born populations in the country. This cross-sectional (one-time) study consists of 61 transcripts from face-to-face interviews with organisations who supply (recruitment agencies) and employ (employers) in the hospitality and food production and processing sectors which were carried out across four rural and urban case study sites in England and Scotland between January and October 2010. Observation units were therefore 61 individual members of organisations that supply (recruitment companies) or use (employers) East-Central European migrant labour in the UK.

This dataset is an analysis of the long-term migrant population of England and Wales by country of birth, passports held and other characteristics based on Census 2021.

Usual resident

A usual resident is anyone who on Census Day, 21 March 2021 was in the UK and had stayed or intended to stay in the UK for a period of 12 months or more, or had a permanent UK address and was outside the UK and intended to be outside the UK for less than 12 months.

Country of birth

The country in which a person was born. The following country of birth classifications are used in this dataset:

• Country of birth 12a: Political groupings of countries by EU membership and geographical location for non-EU countries.
• Country of birth 190a: Individual countries. This classification includes geographical groupings for low volume countries.
• Country of birth (3 categories): These categories have been derived from country of birth 12a and include all UK countries in "Europe: United Kingdom", all EU countries in "Europe: EU countries" and all remaining countries including British Overseas territories in "Non-EU countries (including British Overseas)".

Country of birth classifications

Passports held

The country or countries that a person holds, or is entitled to hold, a passport for. Where a person recorded having more than one passport, they were counted only once, categorised in the following priority order: 1. UK passport, 2. Irish passport, 3. Other passport.

The following classifications were created for this dataset for comparability with other international migration releases:

• Passports held (4 categories): High level political groupings of passport held by EU membership and geographical location for non-EU countries.
• Passports held (12 categories): Political groupings of passport held by EU membership and geographical location for non-EU countries.
• Passports held (150 categories): Individual countries for passport held. This classification includes geographical groupings for low volume countries.

Alternate passports held classifications

Economic activity status

The economic activity status of a person on Census Day, 21 March 2021. The following classification was created for this dataset:

• Economic activity status (6 categories): These categories have been derived from the base classification to create employed, self-employed, unemployed (seeking work), economically inactive students and economically active other groups.

Students who are economically active are included in either the Employee, Self-employed, or Unemployed (Looking for work) category

Economic activity status classifications

Industry

The industry worked in for those in current employment. The following classification was used for this dataset:

• Industry (current) classification 22a

Industry classifications