UK net migration nearly halved to 171,000. Will it fall again on 26 November?
The Office for National Statistics gives its next figure on 26 November. It counts those who moved to the UK for a year or more, minus those who left.
What happened
There were 727,487 people who came to the UK via visas from to , not including visitors or people transiting through the UK. This was down by 15% on the same period the previous year.
Net migration to the UK was 171,000 in 2025. This is the number of people who came to live in the UK for a year or more, minus the number who left. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on that it had nearly halved from 331,000 in 2024 and was down from the peak of 944,000 in the year to . The main reason was work: arrivals for work from outside the European Union and a few nearby countries fell by 47%.
On Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs that most migrants will now have to wait ten years before they can settle in the UK for good, up from five. Care workers who earn at least £25,000 and arrived before keep the five-year path. In an interview for an ITV documentary, reported on , Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that legal migration had “come right down”, and he did not say whether it should fall further.
Home Office figures show 727,000 visas for reasons other than short visits from to , 15% fewer than a year before. Not everyone who gets a visa comes. The ONS gives its estimate for that same year at 9:30 on . Each release also updates the figure before it: in the ONS first put 2024 at 431,000, and it now says 331,000.
Net migration was provisionally estimated at 171,000 in YE .
Office for National Statistics, Long-term international migration, provisional,
Sources: BBC, ONS (2, 3), The Guardian, GOV.UK
The Pattern
We looked for cases where the ONS gave its regular estimate of UK net migration for the latest year, and compared it with its first figure for the period before. The ONS changed its method in 2021 and says older and newer figures should be compared with caution. We found eight such releases from to . The new figure was lower three times, and those were the last three.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
The three lower figures came in a row, after the government made visa rules stricter in 2024 and 2025. Visas other than for short visits fell by 82,000 in the first half of 2026: the yearly total went from 809,000 to 727,000. In the half year before they fell by 43,000, and the ONS figure for the year fell by 48,000 over the same months, from its updated 219,000 for mid-2025 to 171,000. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the UK’s official budget forecaster, expects net migration of 120,000 for 2026 as a whole.
There are reasons for doubt. All eight releases come from one office, and the ONS changed parts of its method twice in that time, in 2023 and 2025. Fewer people are also leaving the UK: departures fell by 38,000 in 2025. In the new figure was only 33,000 below the first figure of 204,000 for mid-2025, after two falls of more than 200,000. The ONS also updates the old figure on the same day. It raised it in six of eight releases, but the changes in were small, 14,000 down for one year and 15,000 up for another.
Sources: ONS (2, 3), GOV.UK (2), UnHerd, Office for Statistics Regulation
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