Accredited official statistics

How many people claim asylum in the UK?

Published 28 November 2024

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-september-2024/how-many-people-claim-asylum-in-the-uk

Back to ‘Immigration system statistics, year ending September 2024’ content page.

Data relates to the year ending September 2024 and all comparisons are with the year ending September 2023 (unless indicated otherwise).

An asylum claim may relate to more than one person, if the main applicant has family members (‘dependants’) who are included in the same claim.

This release focuses on the number of people (main applicants and dependants) claiming asylum.

Statistics on other parts of the asylum system are available in other chapters of this report - ‘How many people are granted asylum in the UK?’ and ‘How many cases are in the UK asylum system?’.

Additionally, more detail on asylum claims from small boat arrivals is available in section 3 of the ‘How many people come to the UK irregularly, year ending September 2024’.

1. How many people claim asylum in the UK?

99,790 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending September 2024, which was 1% more than in the year ending September 2023. Of these, 77,066 were main applicants and 22,724 were dependants.

Figure 1: Number of people claiming asylum in the UK, years ending December 2002 to September 20241

Source: Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement – Asy_D01 and Irregular migration to the UK detailed dataset - Irr_D02

Notes:

  1. Includes main applicants and dependants.

Figure 1 shows that asylum claims were particularly high in the early 2000s due to a large number of people fleeing persecution from countries with conflicts and political instability, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

Between 2004 and 2020, there were between 22,000 and 46,000 people claiming asylum in the UK each year. However, since the second half of 2021, there has been a noticeable increase, reaching a peak of almost 103,000 in the year ending March 2023.

Some asylum seekers claim asylum immediately upon arrival to the UK, while others may have been present in the UK some time prior to making an asylum claim. Some arrivals on legal visa routes may find during or at the end of their leave that they are unable to return to their country of origin and therefore claim asylum in the UK.

Since 2020, there has been an increase in people arriving in the UK without leave to enter via small boats across the English Channel. Almost all small boat arrivals claim asylum (99% in the year ending September 2024). As shown in Figure 1, 28,050 people claiming asylum in the year ending September 2024 had arrived on a small boat (28% of the total). The remaining claimants will have entered either through other irregular routes (such as lorries or shipping containers); through the common travel area without valid permission to enter; or through regular routes with either valid leave to enter (such as using a visa) or using fraudulent documents. Internally matched data for asylum claims suggests that around 20% of people claiming asylum in 2023 held a valid visa within 7 days of lodging an asylum claim.

2. Who claims asylum in the UK?

Pakistan (9,560), Afghanistan (8,453) and Iran (7,895) were the most common nationalities claiming asylum in the year ending September 2024, together representing over a quarter (26%) of people claiming asylum.

Figure 2: Top 10 nationalities claiming asylum in the UK, years ending September 2022 to September 2024, and grant rate at initial decision (%), year ending September 20241, 2, 3

Source: Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement – Asy_D01 and Asy_D02

Notes:

  1. The figure shows the top 10 nationalities claiming asylum in the year ending September 2024.
  2. The number of people claiming asylum includes main applicants and dependants.
  3. The percentages in the figure show the grant rate at initial decision for each nationality in the year ending September 2024. Grant rate is the proportion of initial decisions (grants and refusals) which resulted in a grant of protection or other leave (main applicants only).

Figure 2 shows that most of the top nationalities claiming asylum have increased compared with 2 years ago and while some nationalities have fallen in the latest year, others have continued to increase. Pakistani nationals claiming asylum almost doubled (+94%) in the latest year to 9,560 and Vietnamese nationals also more than doubled (+136%) to 4,982.

Albanian nationals claiming asylum more than tripled (+259%) between the year ending September 2021 and the year ending September 2022, due to a high number of Albanian small boat arrivals in the summer of 2022. This meant they were the most common nationality claiming asylum in the year ending September 2022 with 16,115 claimants. However, claims from Albanian nationals in the latest year are 82% lower than 2 years ago in the year ending September 2022. This follows the UK-Albania agreement on illegal migration in December 2022.

70% of people claiming asylum in the year ending September 2024 were men.

Table 1: Number of people claiming asylum in the UK, in the year ending September 2024, by age and sex

Male Female
Aged 17 and under 12,075 7,783
Aged 18 and over 57,607 22,253

Source: Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement – Asy_D01

Table 1 relates to both accompanied and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. There were 4,017 claims from unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in the year ending September 2024, 30% less than in the previous year. UASC claims made up 5% of the total number of people claiming asylum in the year ending September 2024, and 77% of UASCs were aged 16 or 17.

A small percentage of asylum claims, (2% in 2023), involve individuals seeking protection due to their sexual orientation. For more details, see the ‘Asylum claims on the basis of sexual orientation annual chapter’.

3. How does the UK compare with the EU+?

The EU+ refers to the 27 countries in the EU, 3 additional countries who are members of the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and Montenegro. The latest available comparative data for the EU+ relates to the year ending June 2024.

In the year ending June 2024, there were 1.16 million people claiming asylum in the EU+, an increase of 5% compared to the previous year (and compared to a 5% decrease in the UK).

Compared with other European countries, the UK received the fifth largest number of asylum seekers in the year ending June 2024 (97,107). The UK received 8% of the total number of asylum claimants across the EU+ and UK combined, and the 19th largest intake when measured ‘per head of population’.

Germany received the highest number of people claiming asylum in the EU+ with 319,710 claimants, followed by Spain (163,755), France (163,190), and Italy (158,560).

Figure 3: The number people claiming asylum to the UK and the top 4 countries in the EU+, year ending June 2020 to year ending June 20241, 2

Source: Eurostat Asylum statistics and Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement – Asy_D01

Notes:

  1. Top 4 countries in the EU+ receiving asylum applicants in the year ending June 2024.
  2. Includes main applicants and dependants.

Data referred to here can be found in the following tables:

Further links:

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