How many people actually leave: enforced returns, voluntary returns, port refusals, and the returns of foreign national offenders — five different measures that are never added together.
9,669 people were returned from the UK by enforcement in year ending June 2026, alongside 30,936 voluntary returns and 5,962 foreign national offender returns.
Read this first
A return, a removal and a deportation are three different things, and the five headline measures on this page count different populations over different periods. None of them should be added to another, and none is a share of the arrivals on the arrivals page, which counts a different cohort on a different basis.
These are five different measures, not five views of one. Return, removal and deportation are three different things — a return is anyone leaving who had no right to remain, including voluntary departures; a removal is one the state carries out; a deportation follows a deportation order. Every figure below states which it counts, and none of them should be added together.
Enforced vs voluntary returns since 2004
EnforcedVoluntary
Returns from the UK by type, per calendar year. Returns summary tables, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics). Voluntary returns include assisted, controlled and other verified returns; recent years are provisional.
Enforced returns were highest in 2004 (21,425), against 9,908 in 2025 — the series begins in 2004, so it cannot show whether that was itself a peak. Enforced returns have risen from their low of 2,788 in 2021. The irregular arrivals on the arrivals page are counted on a different basis over a different period, so we state both numbers and let readers judge the gap; the cohorts differ, so we do not construct a ‘removal rate’ from them.
Foreign national offender returns, year by year
Foreign national offenders returned from the UK, per calendar year. Returns summary tables, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics).
The site has published this series' latest value for months and the series itself never. Across the 16 years published, FNO returns were highest in 2016 (6,437) and lowest in 2021 (2,706), against 5,732 in 2025.
Returns month by month — the operational counts
The Home Office also publishes a monthly operational count of returns, from 1 December 2022 and 31 January 2026. It is a different series from the quarterly official statistics above, produced on a different counting basis, and the two must never be added together or plotted on one axis — a month here and a quarter there do not sum to anything. It is shown because the shape of a month-by-month series is information the quarterly figures cannot give.
EnforcedVoluntary
Monthly operational returns counts. Returns from the UK (Home Office transparency data).
Across the 38 months published, the busiest was Oct-25 with 3,434 returns of all types, and the quietest Dec-22 with 1,531.
Why this is kept separate
Monthly operational returns counts — provisional, on a different counting basis from the quarterly official statistics; the two must never be mixed in one chart.
Top nationalities of FNOs returned, year ending June 2026. Returns summary tables, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics). Provisional.
FNO returns by offence group
Offence groups of FNOs returned from the UK, year ending June 2026. Offence groups of FNOs returned from the UK, summed across published nationalities. Experimental statistics from a redesigned data system.
Offence groups by nationality
The Home Office publishes the offence groups of FNOs returned, by nationality. Counts are reproduced exactly as published for the largest nationalities and offence groups.
FNO returns by nationality and offence group
Nationality
Drug offences
Theft offences
Violence against person offences outside of homicide
Counts of FNOs returned, by nationality and offence group, exactly as published. Says nothing about offending rates within any nationality — the denominator is people returned, not people resident. Experimental statistics from a redesigned data system.
Returns of small-boat arrivals — the published cohort
The Home Office publishes returns of people who originally arrived by small boat as a single cohort — no constructed ratio needed. Set against arrivals, it is the sharpest measure of the enforcement gap on this site.
Returns of small-boat arrivals, quarterly. Returns summary tables, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics). Provisional.
Returns of small-boat arrivals by nationality, year ending June 2026. Residual 'Other' excluded.
All return types combined; a return may occur in a later period than the arrival. Of the year's enforced returns overall, 3,841 were of people who had claimed asylum at some point (year ending June 2026).
Returns of former asylum claimants, and of everyone else
The same published table splits returns four ways, and only one of the four was shown here. In 2025, enforced returns were 3,429 of people who had claimed asylum and 6,479 of people who had not; voluntary returns were 8,967 and 20,840 respectively. Enforced and voluntary returns count different things and are not added together here.
Until 2021 Q4, the Home Office published WHY FNOs were released into the community — Immigration Judge bail, Home Office bail, allowed appeals, end of sentence. The series was then discontinued with no successor: the community stock of 21,294 above can no longer be decomposed by release reason. In its final quarter, 651 of 811 releases were by Immigration Judge bail.
FNOs released into the community by quarter — series DISCONTINUED after 2021 Q4. Immigration Enforcement data: April to June 2026 (Home Office, Migration transparency data).
Returns and deportations from the UK. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-09-02.
https://migrationwatchdog.com/crime/returns
Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.