Overview of the immigration system
Published 21 May 2020
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-march-2020/overview-of-the-immigration-system
Back to ‘Immigration statistics, year ending March 2020’ content page.
This is not the latest release. View latest release.
The Home Office ‘Immigration statistics’ series forms part of a larger cross-Government Statistical Service Transformation plan to meet changing user needs, and which will begin to put administrative data at the core of evidence on migration.
‘Immigration statistics, year ending March 2020’ provides the latest figures on persons who are subject to United Kingdom (UK) immigration controls. All data in this release relate to the year ending March 2020 (1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020) and all comparisons are with the year ending March 2019 (1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019), unless stated otherwise. Due to European Union (EU) freedom of movement principles, the majority of UK immigration controls relate to non-European Economic Area (EEA) nationals. Unless otherwise stated, data in this release relate to non-EEA nationals.
The August edition of ‘Immigration statistics’ each year provides a more detailed summary of the statistics.
The Immigration statistics release provides information on the Home Office’s operation of immigration control and related processes, including the work of UK Border Force, UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI), and Immigration Enforcement.
Figures on performance against service standards and processing times are published as part of the Home Office ‘Migration transparency data’.
The Home Office publishes a range of other research on migration, available at the ‘Migration research and analysis’ page on GOV.UK. Details on the developments and future plans for Home Office Immigration statistics can be found in ‘Developments in migration statistics’. For details of other migration outputs published across government, see the ‘About this release’ section.
Figure 1 provides a high-level overview of UK immigration control for non-EEA nationals. It does not include reference to all aspects of immigration as highlighted in the chart notes.
The effects of COVID-19
On the 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic as a global pandemic. The start of restrictions in the UK began on 12 March 2020, with the UK being placed into lockdown on 23 March 2020. This followed similar measures put in place across Europe and other parts of the world.
As the quarterly immigration statistics cover the period from 01 January 2020 to 31 March 2020, some of the impacts of COVID-19 on the immigration system can start to be seen towards the end of this period. Where this is the case, this report will refer to those impacts.
An additional one-off report will be published on 28 May 2020, providing a statistical overview of COVID-19 impacts on the immigration system through to the end of April 2020. The information in this additional report is designed to provide an overview of the key impacts on the immigration system of the pandemic of COVID-19 in the UK and the introduction of lockdown measures in March and April 2020.
Figure 1: Summary of UK immigration system1,2
Chart notes:
- The chart excludes references to appeals.
- Non-visa nationals seeking to enter the UK in a visa category for longer than 6 months require a visa, whereas those seeking to enter the UK for 6 months or less do not.
Other statistical releases
At the same time as this release, the following statistical releases were also published:
- ‘Migration Statistics Quarterly Report’, Office for National Statistics (ONS) – a summary of the latest official long-term international migration statistics (including net migration, immigration and emigration trends)
- ‘Short-term international migration for England and Wales: mid-2018’, ONS - Details of the characteristics of migrants who have completed a stay in the UK of between 31 to 365 days.
- ‘Population of the UK by country of birth and nationality: 2019’, ONS - Annual details of the residents of the UK by region and local and unitary authorities
- ‘Migrant journey: 2019 report’, Home Office - Formerly known as ‘Statistics on changes in migrants’ visas and leave status’, this release explores migrants’ journeys through the UK’s immigration system
- National insurance numbers allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK’, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Quarterly Official Statistics on National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK
- ‘EU Settlement Scheme Statistics, April 2020’, Home Office
We welcome your feedback
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See section 7 of the ‘About this release’ section for more details.