Net migration to UK drops 69% year on year, ONS figures show
Figure of 204,000 in 12 months to June 2025 is lowest since 2021, statistics body says
Net migration to the UK has fallen by more than two-thirds to 204,000 in a single year, the lowest annual figure since 2021, according to the latest official statistics.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show there was a 69% drop from 649,000 in the number of people immigrating minus the number of people emigrating in the year to June 2025.
Net migration peaked at a record 944,000 in the year to March 2023 due to a surge of foreign workers encouraged to come to the UK by Boris Johnson’s government as the UK emerged from the Covid pandemic, but has fallen sharply since then.
Just under 900,000 people immigrated to the UK between July 2024 and June 2025, down more than 400,000 people on the year before. At the same time, 693,000 people emigrated from the UK, up by 43,000 on the previous year.
Long-term immigration of asylum seekers was 96,000 in the year ending June 2025, making up 11% of all immigration – double the 5% share in 2019.
The fall in non-EU nationals coming to the UK has been driving the sudden fall in net migration. While non-EU nationals are still adding to the UK population, more EU and British nationals have been leaving the UK than arriving.
About 70,000 EU nationals are predicted to have left the UK in the year up to June, continuing a downward trend since the Brexit referendum. About 109,000 British nationals are also thought to have left the UK in this time, projections from the ONS found.
Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, said net migration figures may not continue to fall in the long term.
“Net migration has fallen substantially, but this will not necessarily be sustained long term. In particular, negative net migration of EU citizens who arrived before Brexit is still subtracting quite a lot from the figures, and this won’t go on for ever,” she said.
Separate figures published by the Home Office show the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels has risen. A total of 36,273 people claiming asylum were living in hotels at the end of September, up 13% on the figure in June.
Anger over the use of local hotels by people seeking asylum led to protests this summer. Last month, ministers announced that two barracks in Scotland and southern England would be used to house about 900 men temporarily, as part of efforts to stop using hotels to temporarily house asylum seekers.
There were 51,000 arrivals detected as having come via illegal routes, including small boat, lorries and vans, in the year ending September 2025.
Of those, small boat arrivals accounted for 46,000 (89%). The top nationalities arriving by small boat were Eritrean (17%), Afghan (13%), Iranian (11%), Sudanese (10%) and Somalian (8%).
The Home Office data shows that 111,000 people claimed asylum in the year ending September 2025, just below the figure of 111,084 for the year ending June 2025.
Immigration policies have become key election battlegrounds amid a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Policies set in train by the Tories under Rishi Sunak’s government cut the number of work and student visas. Their policies have been further pursued by Starmer’s government.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said: “Net migration is at its lowest level in half a decade and has fallen by more than two-thirds under this government. “But we are going further because the pace and scale of migration has placed immense pressure on local communities.
“Last week, I announced reforms to our migration system to ensure that those who come here must contribute and put in more than they take out.”
Reacting to the figures, the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, said the fall was driven by Conservative reforms “but we need to go much further”.