Immigration in one image
Net migration, who arrives, and what the illegal-entry figures do and do not measure.
UK Facts · Immigration
813,000 people arrived. Net migration was 171,000. Both are true.
The two figures people argue about are not competing estimates of the same thing — one is arrivals, the other is arrivals minus departures.
- 813,000arrived long-termImmigration: people moving to the UK for 12 months or more
- 642,000left long-termEmigration: people leaving for 12 months or more, including returning migrants and British citizens
- 171,000net migrationThe headline figure — the difference between the two, not a count of arrivals
Net migration, 2012 to 2025: a post-pandemic peak of 891,000, now down to 171,000.
A fall in net migration is not a fall in arrivals
Net migration has more than halved twice since 2022, but 813,000 people still arrived in the year to December 2025 — more than in any year before 2021. Net migration can fall because fewer people arrive, or because more people leave. Both have been happening.
Read this carefully: Detected irregular arrivals — 46,497 in 2025 — come from a separate Home Office series and are not a slice of these ONS figures. They count detected arrival events, not people living in the UK unlawfully, and cannot be added to or subtracted from the numbers above.
United Kingdom · Year ending December 2025 · Provisional
Source: ONS, Long-term international migration, provisional · uk-statpack.co.uk
See both measures charted, with what the illegal-entry figures do and do not measure →UK Facts · Immigration
171k
Long-term net migration
YE Dec 2025 · United Kingdom. Provisional; rounded to the nearest 1,000; Official statistics in development; subject to routine revision for roughly 12 months.
ONS Long-term international migration, provisional · verified 2026-07-26
813k
Total immigration
All nationalities, 2025
ONS, Long-term international migration, provisional (YE Dec 2025 edition, Table 1)
46,497
Detected illegal-route arrivals
Detected events, not people resident, 2025
Home Office, Illegal entry routes to the UK detailed dataset (YE March 2026), table IER_D01
Figures cover different geographies and reporting periods. Open the full analysis for definitions and caveats before quoting any of them.
Generated from the same verified stat registry and chart datasets as the rest of the site.