The asylum system
From claim to outcome: how many people claim, how long they wait, what the decisions are — including for small-boat arrivals — and the support system that houses them meanwhile.
How claimants entered the country
The Home Office splits each year's claimants by route of entry — the illegal routes this site tracks, and the visa-holders who claimed after entering lawfully.
| Route prior to claim | People |
|---|---|
| Illegal Entry Routes | 44,297 |
| — Small Boat | 33,949 |
| — Clandestine | 6,999 |
| — Entered Without Relevant Documentation | 3,349 |
| Visas and Other Leave | 34,999 |
| — Study Visa | 9,442 |
| — Work Visa | 14,151 |
| — Visitor Visa | 6,392 |
| — Other Leave | 5,014 |
People claiming asylum by route of entry / latest leave held before the claim (Asy_01c). Claim-date basis — differs from the arrival-date basis of the Illegal entry routes tables.
| Nationality | Study | Work | Visitor | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | 2,918 | 3,610 | 606 | 7,324 |
| Bangladesh | 1,083 | 3,113 | 497 | 4,789 |
| India | 1,830 | 775 | 712 | 3,390 |
| Nigeria | 792 | 1,426 | 448 | 2,783 |
| Iran | 365 | 1,074 | 184 | 1,710 |
People claiming asylum after entering the UK WITH a visa or other leave, by nationality and latest leave held (Asy_01e). Holding a visa at some point before claiming is not evidence about any individual's motives.
By nationality: claims, decisions, grant rates, waiting
| Nationality | Claims | Initial decisions | Grant rate | Awaiting decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | 8,305 | 12,453 | 25% | 2,730 |
| Eritrea | 6,952 | 8,918 | 84% | 1,865 |
| Iran | 6,705 | 8,072 | 55% | 2,763 |
| Sudan | 5,992 | 6,653 | 92% | 2,569 |
| Afghanistan | 5,952 | 8,775 | 35% | 3,215 |
| Bangladesh | 5,769 | 8,657 | 11% | 2,925 |
| Somalia | 4,983 | 4,221 | 36% | 3,020 |
| India | 4,964 | 4,096 | 1% | 2,181 |
| Nigeria | 3,179 | 3,815 | 28% | 1,429 |
| Sri Lanka | 2,312 | 3,520 | 23% | 915 |
Claims, initial decisions, grant rate (cases) and people awaiting a decision, by nationality (Asy_00b). Decisions in a period are not decisions on that period's claims. Final grant rates including appeals are on the appeals page.
The rates in that column run from 93% for Yemen to 1% for Brazil. A spread that wide invites an explanation, and a reader given none will supply their own, so it is worth saying plainly what does and does not sit behind it.
A grant rate is the outcome of individual decisions taken against the situation in a particular country. The Home Office publishes country policy and information notes setting out what it considers the conditions to be, and the courts issue country guidance that decision-makers are expected to follow; both differ by country and both change over time. Nationalities whose claims are largely refused and nationalities whose claims are largely granted are therefore being assessed against different published positions, not against a single threshold applied more or less generously.
What this site holds is the column and nothing under it. There is no dataset here linking a grant rate to a country policy note, to country guidance, or to the composition of claims from any nationality — and the published statistics do not carry the reasons for individual decisions. So no explanation of any particular rate is offered on this page. The rates are also initial decisions only; the appeals page shows how far outcomes move afterwards.
Asylum claims per year since 2010
The backlog: people awaiting an initial decision
The backlog peaked at 175,457 in mid-2023 and stands at 40,168 (as at 30 June 2026) — of whom 11,014 have already been waiting 12 months or more.
| Waiting | People |
|---|---|
| Less than 3 months | 14,492 |
| 3 months to less than 6 months | 6,424 |
| 6 months to less than 12 months | 8,238 |
| 12 months or more | 11,014 |
Outcomes: what decisions are made
Claims from small-boat arrivals, Year ending June 2026
grant rate at initial decision
| Outcome | People |
|---|---|
| Grants | 22,379 |
| Refused | 24,116 |
| Withdrawn | 3,895 |
| Administrative Outcome | 608 |
| Total outcomes | 50,998 |
Initial-decision outcomes of asylum claims from people who arrived by small boat, by outcome date (people). The grant rate is calculated on cases, as published.
Small-boat grant rates by nationality, Year ending June 2026
| Nationality | Decisions (people) | Grant rate |
|---|---|---|
| Eritrea | 7,719 | 83% |
| Sudan | 4,991 | 91% |
| Afghanistan | 6,821 | 29% |
| Somalia | 3,293 | 32% |
| Iran | 4,596 | 42% |
| Ethiopia | 1,664 | 53% |
| Iraq | 2,103 | 21% |
| Syria | 4,499 | 5% |
| Turkey | 1,931 | 12% |
| Vietnam | 1,173 | 16% |
| All nationalities | 46,495 | 48% |
Top nationalities as published. Grant rates are at initial decision only, by outcome date; rates move with policy decisions (pauses, country guidance) as well as caseload.
Grants per year since 2010
Support: who the state is housing meanwhile
What the inspectorate found
“the inspection found that, across AHRO, it is being recognised that quality has been the poor relation to productivity over the past few years.”
ICIBI: An inspection of asylum casework (June – December 2025) · 25 June 2026 · para 2.9. AHRO is the Home Office's Asylum and Human Rights Operations directorate — the unit that clears the backlog charted above.
Inadmissibility
1,979 people were identified for consideration under the inadmissibility rules in 2026 Q2 — the mechanism for declining to consider a claim from someone with a connection to a safe third country.
How fast the system decides
Of asylum applications received in 2025 Q4, 73.7% got an initial decision within 6 months — the department's own service measure.
Percentage of asylum applications completed within 6 months of receipt, by quarter received (table ASY_01). Recent cohorts are incomplete by construction and can still improve.
What support actually is, and whether people can work
The rest of this page counts people. This section is about what those people receive, because it is one of the most argued-over parts of the subject and the site had nothing on it. These are rules and rates published as guidance rather than as statistics: each is quoted below exactly as the department words it, with the date it was read.
| Payment | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash support, per person per week | £49.18 |
| Cash support where accommodation provides meals, per person per week | £9.95 |
| Additional payment, pregnant mother, per week | £5.25 |
| Additional payment, baby under 1, per week | £9.50 |
| Additional payment, child aged 1 to 3, per week | £5.25 |
| One-off maternity payment | £300 |
Asylum support: what you'll get (GOV.UK, Home Office) — read 2026-09-02. Source. The weekly rates are per person, so a household of four receives four times the per-person figure.
Whether they can work
“You will not usually be allowed to work while your asylum claim is being considered.”
The department's own wording, quoted in full. “Not usually” is doing real work in that sentence and this site does not tighten it: permission can be sought in defined circumstances, and the conditions attached to it are set out in Home Office guidance rather than in this statistic.
- No official figure is published for how many people receiving support are in catered accommodation rather than self-catered, so the two rates above cannot be weighted into an average.
- No official figure is published for the total annual cost of these cash payments as a separate line; the accommodation and support contract costs on the costs page are a different measure and are not a substitute.
- No official figure is published for how many asylum seekers hold permission to work.
The one policy that set out to remove people who claimed asylum to a third country, and what it cost, is on the third-country page.
The UK in context
First-time asylum applicants in the 6 largest western-EU receiving states, calendar year 2025 (Eurostat). The UK's own figure — 85,891 people claiming asylum, Year ending June 2026 — sits beside them for scale only: the UK is outside Eurostat's collection and its counting basis differs, so the numbers are indicative context, not a league table.
- Spain141,055
- Italy128,655
- France116,475
- Germany113,235
- Belgium27,540
- Netherlands24,115
- United Kingdom (Home Office basis, Year ending June 2026)85,891
Indicative context only. The UK is not in Eurostat's collection; UK claim counts come from Home Office statistics on a different counting basis (claims vs applicants, year-ending vs calendar periods) and are not directly comparable.
The same 6 states, on returns — third-country nationals returned following an order to leave, calendar year 2025: Germany 36,075, France 18,930, Spain 5,705, Belgium 5,245, Netherlands 4,970, Italy 4,780. UK returns are on the crime and justice page on the Home Office's own counting basis.
Indicative context only, rounded by Eurostat. Counting bases differ from UK returns statistics (orders to leave vs enforced/voluntary returns) — never a league table.
“Does the UK take more than its share?” is the question this table raises and it is not one these numbers can answer. Dividing each figure by each country's population would produce a tidy table of rates whose numerators are collected on at least two different bases — Eurostat counts first-time applicants, the Home Office counts people claiming asylum — and this site does not build a rate whose halves do not measure the same thing.
For the same reason the states above are not ranked against the UK, and the UK's position in the list is not stated. Ordering them implies the counts are comparable to a precision they do not have. They are here for order of magnitude, which is the most these figures will carry.
What ministers are being asked
The most recent answered written parliamentary questions on asylum and enforcement. A question is an assertion by a member, not a finding — each link carries the government's answer on the official record.
- Offences against Children: Asylum Joy Morrissey · answered by Ministry of Justice, 2026-09-18
- Temporary Accommodation: Eligibility David Simmonds · answered by Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 2026-09-18
- Asylum: Housing Matt Vickers · answered by Home Office, 2026-09-17
- Asylum: Housing Matt Vickers · answered by Home Office, 2026-09-17
- Asylum: Finance Matt Vickers · answered by Home Office, 2026-09-17
Download this data
- Claims by year: CSV · JSON
- Backlog, quarterly: CSV · JSON
- Claims by route of entry: CSV · JSON
- By nationality: CSV · JSON
- Decisions within 6 months: CSV · JSON
Every file carries provenance headers. All datasets →
The rules behind these figures are being changed: the immigration bills before Parliament and the recorded votes on them → — noting that nothing in a bill is in force until it is enacted and commenced.
Ministers make claims about the backlog and asylum decisions in Parliament. Read them beside these figures → — quoted verbatim, with the period of both, and no verdict from this site.
Data as of
Cite this page
The asylum system: claims, backlog, outcomes, support. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-09-03. https://migrationwatchdog.com/asylum Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.
Sources for this page
- Asylum summary tables, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics) — Home Office · Year ending June 2026 · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Asylum claims awaiting a decision detailed datasets, year ending June 2026 (Home Office) — Home Office · retrieved 2026-09-03
- Asylum seekers in receipt of support by local authority, year ending June 2026 (Home Office) — Home Office · retrieved 2026-09-03