UK net migration falls below 200,000 as visa clampdown bites

NET migration to the UK fell below 200,000 people in 2025 for the first time since the pandemic, a boost for the ruling Labour Party as it tries to win back supporters from Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK.

A total of 171,000 more people entered the UK for long-term stays than left last year, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday. That’s little more than half the 331,000 figure posted in 2024. 

Besides 2020, when pandemic travel restrictions saw net migration drop below 100,000, it was the lowest figure for a calendar year in records going back to 2012. Net migration has fallen 82 per cent from its peak of 944,000 in the year through March 2023.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has announced a raft of changes to the immigration system, hoping to prove to voters that they are tightening the UK’s borders.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood plans to make it harder for those on low incomes to gain residency and citizenship in the UK, while easing the path for high earners.

She is also making refugee status time-limited, to ensure successful asylum seekers return to their home country when it is deemed safe. However, they are unpopular with a large section of the Labour Party.

Mahmood’s migration plans have turned into a dividing line in the debate over who should replace Starmer.

The prime minister is facing growing pressure to resign after Labour suffered devastating losses in local elections earlier this month. Voters have been turning to the anti-immigration Reform UK party, which has topped national opinion polls for more than a year.

Reform made significant gains in the district of Makerfield, where an upcoming special election will determine whether Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, can mount a leadership challenge against Starmer. Burnham appears to back Mahmood’s plans to curb migration, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.

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Migration has become a top issue for voters, particularly the number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in small boats. It even overtook the economy as the main concern, although that trend has since reversed.

Britons and Europeans continued to depart the UK in large numbers. European Union nationals leaving the country exceeded those coming in by 42,000, while for Britons that figure was 136,000. That was offset by a net 350,000 migrants from outside the EU entering the UK.

The drop in migration in 2025 was mainly caused by a decline in the number of workers, while the number of students continued to increase.

Only 146,000 non-EU nationals came to work in the UK last year, a 47 per cent annual decline. The Office for Budget Responsibility has repeatedly sounded warnings that lower immigration will negatively impact economic growth in the UK.

Separate figures from the Home Office show the number of visas granted to work in the UK dropped by 17 per cent to 253,000 in the year through March. BLOOMBERG