Net migration: Frequently asked questions

What is net migration?

Net migration is a measure of how long-term international migration adds to the UK population. It is the number of people immigrating minus the number emigrating.   

People migrate to the UK for different reasons, including work, study, family and humanitarian reasons. The headline net migration figure from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) includes them all, so long as they are migrating for at least 12 months. It also includes British people emigrating and returning to the UK (net migration of Brits is negative, so subtracts from the total).    

Why did net migration increase after the pandemic?

Net migration increased sharply post-pandemic, peaking at 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. For comparison, net migration was generally between 250,000 and 350,000 during the 2010s.   

The rise from 2019 to 2023 was driven mostly by non-EU citizens arriving on work and study visas (including their partners or children). Asylum seekers made up around 10% of overall net migration in 2023.   

Much of the increase resulted from recent immigration policy liberalisations. For example, the Conservative government liberalised rules for work visas and encouraged more international students to come to the UK. It also opened new humanitarian visa routes for Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Immigration policy also interacted with other factors unrelated to immigration. For example, universities started to recruit students overseas more actively as their financial situation deteriorated.  

For more information on the drivers of net migration, see the Migration Observatory briefing, Net migration to the UK.  

Why did net migration fall after 2023, and will this continue?

The sharp fall in net migration from the historical high in 2023 to 171,000 in 2025 is primarily due to policies introduced by the previous Conservative government in early 2024. These included visa restrictions on the family members of care workers and most international students, an increase in the Skilled Worker salary threshold, and a Home Office move to scrutinise applications to sponsor migrant care workers more closely, following reports of widespread exploitation in the sector.  

The current Labour government maintained most of the Conservatives’ 2024 restrictions, and it introduced further restrictions on work visas and refugee family reunion in the second half of 2025. However, these are not yet fully visible in the 2025 statistics. 

Emigration also increased, driven in part by earlier policy liberalisations in 2021 and 2022 (see above). This is because many migrants stay in the UK for only a few years, so higher levels of immigration are usually followed by higher levels of emigration. It is for this reason that the decline in net migration may prove temporary – in other words, once people who arrived earlier in the decade have left, emigration will decline, so the net migration figure is expected to tick back up.   

For more information on the early 2024 policy changes, see the Migration Observatory commentaries, How will new salary thresholds affect UK migration?, and Family fortunes: The UK’s new income requirement for partner visas.  

What is the right level of net migration?

While the current levels of net migration are at a historic high, research evidence cannot tell us what the “right” level of net migration is. The impacts of migration are both economic and social and will differ depending on who is coming to the UK, not just how many. As a result, the level of migration is a political question rather than a technocratic one.  

Higher levels of migration bring both costs and benefits. For example, the available evidence suggests net migration is one of several factors that have contributed to higher house prices in the UK. Higher migration also increases the pace of change in local communities, whereas many people prefer greater stability. Opinion surveys indicate that the majority of the UK public think net migration levels have been too high over the past 10 years. 

On the other hand, individual immigration routes were typically introduced for a reason. In some cases, migration has helped to address challenges in other areas of policy. Admitting more international students brings revenue to universities, for example, while care visas may help reduce the cost of providing care to UK residents who need it in the short run (although they do not address the fundamental recruitment problem in the sector, namely poor pay and conditions). Family migration, meanwhile, benefits British people who marry non-UK citizens. 

A decline in net migration from recent high levels is not, by definition, economically damaging. The Office for Budget Responsibility, for example, estimates that migration levels do not have a big impact on GDP per person. They do find that lower migration has a negative impact on public finances. In practice, however, the economic impacts will also depend on migrants’ characteristics, such as their earnings and whether they have children (as evidence of the fiscal impacts of migration shows).  

For more information on the impacts of net migration, see Chapter 1 of the Migration Advisory Committee’s 2023 Annual Report.  

How does UK net migration compare to other high-income countries?

Over the much longer term, UK net migration levels have been similar to many other high-income countries, although there is a wide range. By 2024, an estimated 19% of the UK’s population was foreign-born. This share was higher than the United States and France, similar to Germany and Spain, and smaller than Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. A handful of high-income countries have substantially lower foreign-born populations, notably Korea and Japan.   

Several other high-income countries saw unusually high migration after the pandemic – largely due to higher levels of work and humanitarian migration, according to the OECD. As a share of its population, the UK saw higher net migration in 2022 than the United States, France and Italy, but lower than Germany and Canada.

 

Thanks to Mike Jones for comments on a previous draft.