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Home Office statistics: immigration, small boats, asylum and policing

Home Office statistics are the official figures the Home Office publishes on immigration, borders, asylum and policing, mostly for the UK (immigration) and England and Wales (policing). They include the quarterly Immigration system statistics release, the near-daily count of people arriving by small boat across the English Channel, police workforce numbers and stop and search records. Fact-checkers use them because they are the primary record behind most political claims about asylum, Channel crossings, visas and police officer numbers.

Covers: UK · Release calendar

What it publishes

• Immigration system statistics, a quarterly release covering visas, passenger arrivals, extensions of stay, settlement, citizenship, asylum, resettlement, detention and returns, organised around plain-English questions such as 'How many people claim asylum in the UK?'.
• Small boat arrivals across the English Channel: a 'last 7 days' page updated most days, a weekly summary of arrivals and of crossings prevented by French authorities, and a downloadable time series of daily arrivals from 1 January 2018.
• Asylum claims, initial decisions, the number of claims awaiting a decision, appeals and outcome analysis that follows a cohort of claims through to a final result.
• Asylum support figures showing how many people receive Home Office accommodation or cash support at the end of each quarter, split by type of support including hotels, with a local authority breakdown.
• Monthly entry clearance visa applications for work, study and family routes, published ahead of the quarterly grant figures.
• Migration transparency data on the performance of Border Force, UK Visas and Immigration and Immigration Enforcement, including processing times.
• Police workforce statistics for the 43 territorial forces in England and Wales and the British Transport Police, as at 31 March and 30 September each year.
• Police powers and procedures statistics on stop and search, arrests and Mental Health Act detentions, plus police use of force, firearms, custody and protest powers.
• Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables by police force area and Community Safety Partnership, which feed the Office for National Statistics (ONS) crime bulletin.

Key datasets

• Immigration system statistics quarterly release
  Collection page holding every quarterly edition, each with topic summaries on visas, asylum, illegal entry routes, settlement, citizenship, detention and returns. UK-wide, with many series running back to the 2000s.
  Updated: Quarterly (late February, May, August and November)
• Immigration system statistics data tables
  The full set of summary tables and detailed datasets behind the quarterly release, including asylum, asylum support, resettlement, visas, settlement, citizenship, returns, detention and illegal entry routes. The page's update log records corrections to published figures.
  Updated: Quarterly
• Small boat activity in the English Channel
  Landing page for provisional operational data on people arriving in the UK by small boat and on crossings prevented by French authorities, with the time series file attached. Covers arrivals from 1 January 2018 and preventions from 29 April 2024.
  Updated: Most days, plus a weekly summary
• Small boat arrivals: last 7 days
  Day-by-day table of migrants arrived, boats arrived and boats involved in uncontrolled landings for the previous seven days, with the official definition of a small boat and what the count excludes.
  Updated: Most days
• Migration statistics collection (including monthly visa applications)
  Hub for Home Office migration outputs, including the monthly entry clearance visa applications release, EU Settlement Scheme statistics and the migrant journey analysis.
  Updated: Monthly and quarterly
• Migration transparency data
  Operational performance data for Border Force, UK Visas and Immigration, Immigration Enforcement and Passports, Citizenship and Civil Registration, such as visa processing times and asylum casework measures.
  Updated: Quarterly
• Police workforce, England and Wales
  Officer, staff, PCSO and special constable numbers by force, rank, sex, ethnicity and age, in both full-time equivalent and headcount, plus joiners and leavers. Covers the 43 territorial forces and the British Transport Police.
  Updated: Twice a year (31 March position published in July; 30 September position published in January)
• Police powers and procedures (stop and search and arrests)
  Stop and search by legal power, reason, outcome and ethnicity, arrests for notifiable offences, and Mental Health Act section 135 and 136 detentions, for each force in England and Wales. Includes summary and open data tables from year ending March 2007.
  Updated: Annual (year ending March, published in the autumn)
• Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables
  Offence-level counts of crimes recorded by each police force and Community Safety Partnership, plus knife and firearm offences and the outcome assigned to each crime (charge, caution, no suspect identified and so on). England and Wales, from year ending March 2013 for force area tables.
  Updated: Quarterly
• Crime outcomes in England and Wales
  Annual statistical bulletin and quarterly tables on what happened to crimes recorded by the police, including charge rates by offence type.
  Updated: Annual bulletin, quarterly tables
• ONS long-term international migration (net migration)
  The ONS, not the Home Office, publishes the official estimate of net migration to the UK: long-term immigration minus emigration. It draws partly on Home Office administrative data and is revised as more data arrives.
  Updated: Twice a year

APIs and downloads

• Immigration system statistics tables (ODS)
  OpenDocument spreadsheets, one per topic, with detailed datasets in long format suitable for filtering and pivoting. No API and no registration; files are replaced each quarter, so download links change.
• Small boats time series (ODS)
  A single ODS file of daily arrivals and weekly preventions attached to the landing page. The file name carries the date it was updated, so link to the landing page rather than the file.
• Police workforce open data tables
  Long-format ODS tables of police workforce by force, role, rank and demographics across the full series. No key needed.
• Stop and search open data tables
  Open data ODS files of searches and outcomes back to year ending March 2007 are attached to each annual 'Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions' release in this collection.
• Police recorded crime open data tables
  ODS files by police force area and Community Safety Partnership, plus outcomes, knife and firearm datasets. Large files; some are split by year range to keep them manageable.
• ONS long-term international migration datasets
  XLSX tables of immigration, emigration and net migration by nationality group and reason, from the ONS.

When it publishes

Home Office statistics are pre-announced on the GOV.UK research and statistics calendar and are released at 9:30am on the stated day, usually a Thursday. The quarterly Immigration system statistics come out in late February, May, August and November, covering the year to the end of the previous quarter. Small boat figures are operational data posted most days without pre-announcement, with a weekly summary. Monthly visa application figures, police workforce (January and July) and stop and search (autumn) follow their own published dates. A small number of named officials receive pre-release access 24 hours ahead, listed on each release page.

How to use it to check a claim

1. For Channel crossings, take daily or year-to-date figures from the 'last 7 days' page and the time series, but quote the quarterly Immigration system statistics (topic 'How many people come to the UK via illegal entry routes?') for any settled quarterly or annual total, because the quarterly figures are quality assured and can differ.
2. Check whether an asylum figure counts main applicants only or includes dependants; the summary tables show both, and headlines often mix them.
3. For 'grant rates', distinguish the initial decision grant rate from the final outcome after appeals; the outcome analysis dataset tracks cohorts of claims to their eventual result.
4. For asylum hotels, use the asylum support tables, which give the number of people supported at the end of each quarter by accommodation type, including contingency (hotel) accommodation, and by local authority.
5. For claims about net migration, go to the ONS long-term international migration release, not Home Office visa grants; a visa grant is permission to come, not a count of people who arrived or stayed.
6. For police officer numbers, state whether the figure is full-time equivalent or headcount and whether it includes the British Transport Police and officers seconded away from their force.
7. For stop and search by ethnicity, use the rates per 1,000 population in the summary tables and note which population estimates were used, since the series was updated using 2021 Census figures.
8. Check the 'Show all updates' log on each data table page for corrections, which are noted with the sheet and the corrected value.

Common mistakes

• Daily small boat counts are provisional operational data and exclude people who arrive undetected, on larger vessels or hidden in vehicles, so they are not a count of all irregular arrivals.
• Visa grants, passenger arrivals and net migration measure different things; summing visa grants does not give the number of people living in the UK or net migration.
• Asylum claims in a period and the number of people waiting for a decision are separate measures; a falling backlog can coincide with rising claims.
• Returns figures cover enforced returns, voluntary returns and port returns, and include people who were never asylum seekers, so 'returns' and 'failed asylum seekers removed' are not the same.
• Police recorded crime reflects reporting and recording practice as well as crime levels; the ONS describes it as not a reliable guide to overall crime trends.
• Year-ending figures (for example, year ending June) are rolling 12-month totals and should not be compared with calendar-year totals without saying so.

Where can I find how many people crossed the Channel in small boats?

The Home Office page 'Small boat activity in the English Channel' on GOV.UK shows arrivals for the last seven days, a weekly summary and a downloadable time series of daily arrivals since 1 January 2018. These are provisional operational figures. Final quarterly and annual totals appear in the Immigration system statistics release under 'How many people come to the UK via illegal entry routes?', which has been more thoroughly quality assured.

How many asylum seekers are housed in hotels?

The Home Office publishes the number of people receiving asylum support at the end of each quarter in the Immigration system statistics, split by type of support, including contingency accommodation such as hotels, and by local authority. Look for the asylum support detailed datasets on the data tables page. The figure is a snapshot on the last day of the quarter, not a count of everyone housed during it.

Does the Home Office publish net migration figures?

No. The official estimate of net migration to the UK comes from the Office for National Statistics in its long-term international migration release, published twice a year. The ONS uses Home Office visa and border data as an input but adds emigration and other adjustments. Home Office visa statistics show permissions granted, which is a different measure from people arriving or leaving.

How many police officers are there in England and Wales?

The Home Office's Police workforce, England and Wales statistics give officer numbers for each of the 43 territorial forces and the British Transport Police as at 31 March and 30 September each year. Figures are given as full-time equivalent and as headcount, so check which one a claim uses. The open data tables let you build a time series by force and rank.

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Links checked 2026-10-13. This page describes what the source publishes and gives no verdict on any claim.