MigrationWatchdog

Asylum accommodation in Northern Ireland

Asylum support across Northern Ireland's 8 local authorities, as at 30 Jun 2026.

2,270 asylum seekers were in receipt of Home Office support across Northern Ireland as at 30 Jun 2026 — 11.8 per 10,000 residents, including 265 in contingency hotels.

2,270
asylum seekers supported
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
11.8
per 10,000 residents (mid-2024)
mid-2025 (one year earlier where the latest estimate is not yet published) · source
1,942
in dispersal accommodation
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
265
in contingency accommodation
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
265
of which in hotels
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source

Northern Ireland carries 2.4% of the UK's supported asylum caseload — 11.8 per 10,000 residents against its mid-2024 population estimate of 1,927,855. The largest concentration is in Belfast (1,540). All UK authorities →

The last 12 quarters

3.1k030 Sep 202330 Jun 202630 Sep 2023 — 3,10831 Dec 2023 — 2,71431 Mar 2024 — 2,73530 Jun 2024 — 2,50130 Sep 2024 — 2,61331 Dec 2024 — 2,69531 Mar 2025 — 2,58330 Jun 2025 — 2,49430 Sep 2025 — 2,52931 Dec 2025 — 2,55731 Mar 2026 — 2,37830 Jun 2026 — 2,270
People in receipt of Home Office asylum support across Northern Ireland, quarterly snapshots — sum of the region's local authorities. Asylum seekers in receipt of Home Office support by local authority, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics).

The legal route, regionally

Alongside asylum dispersal, Northern Ireland's authorities have received 1,563 people through formal resettlement schemes since 2014 (none in the last four published quarters).

four quarters to 2026 Q2, and cumulative since 2014 · source

What Northern Ireland petitioned for

12,748 signatures came from Northern Ireland on the largest immigration or asylum petition of the current record — “Introduce offshore detention/mass deportation for illegal migrants” (720,772 signatures in total, including those recorded outside the UK regions). The wording is the petition creator's, not this site's, and the count measures support for that wording. All petitions →

petitions open or closed as at 2026-09-21 · source

Every authority in Northern Ireland

Asylum seekers in receipt of Home Office support, by local authority
BelfastNorthern Ireland1,540——1,484
Causeway Coast and GlensNorthern Ireland20612712779
Derry City and StrabaneNorthern Ireland206——206
Antrim and NewtownabbeyNorthern Ireland19913813861
Armagh City, Banbridge and CraigavonNorthern Ireland72——72
Newry, Mourne and DownNorthern Ireland29——25
Lisburn and CastlereaghNorthern Ireland16——15
Fermanagh and OmaghNorthern Ireland2———
Counts are people supported at the snapshot date, by the local authority of their registered address; contingency sites open and close between quarters. The table lists only authorities with supported people — authorities with none are omitted by the source, but the population denominator is the published region-level estimate, not a sum of the rows shown. Numbers say where the asylum system places people — they say nothing about any individual.

Data as of

Cite this page

Asylum accommodation in Northern Ireland. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-09-02.
https://migrationwatchdog.com/local/region/northern-ireland
Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.

Sources for this page