Accredited official statistics

How many people come to the UK each year?

Published 25 May 2017

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-january-to-march-2017/how-many-people-come-to-the-uk-each-year

Back to Immigration statistics January to March 2017 content page.

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This section relates to:

  • the number of arrivals by people entering the UK; where an individual enters the country more than once, each arrival is counted; for non-EEA nationals who are subject to immigration control, more detailed information is available on their nationality and purpose of their journey
  • grants of entry clearance visas to individuals outside the UK; including dependants but exclude visitor and transit visas unless stated otherwise

1. Key facts

There were 129.9 million passenger arrivals in 2016, including returning UK residents: a record number and an increase of 6.5 million on 2015. This increase was mainly accounted for by 3.6 million more arrivals by British and 2.0 million by other EEA and Swiss nationals (+5% to 113.6 million). These numbers represent the number of occasions when a person entered the UK, not the number of distinct individuals.

Over a quarter (29%) of all non-EEA visitor arrivals in 2015 were United States (US) nationals.

In addition, there were over 2.5 million visas granted in the year ending March 2017. Of these, almost 2 million (77%) were to visit and 8% were for study reasons.

The chart below illustrates longer-term trends in passengers entering the UK by year.

The chart shows the total number of arrivals made into the UK by broad nationality between 2004 and the latest calendar year available. Global recession starts in 2008 and continues into 2009. The data are available in Admissions table ad 01.

Chart notes

Source: Home Office, Immigration Statistics January to March 2017, Admissions table ad 01.

3. Visas

The following diagram illustrates the type and volume of visas granted in the year ending March 2017. The volume of visas granted is much lower than non-EEA arrivals as some nationalities do not need a visa (for a visit of 6 months or less) to enter the UK.

The chart shows the number and type of visas granted for the latest year available. The data are available in Visas tables vi 01 q and vi 06 q o.

Chart notes

Source: Home Office, Immigration Statistics January to March 2017, Visas table vi 01 q (Visas volume 1) and Visas table vi 06 q o (Visas volume 3).

4. Data tables

Further data on arrivals are available in Admissions tables ad 01 to ad 04.

Further data on entry clearance visas and sponsored visa applications for the work, study and family routes (described further in the Work topic, Study topic and Family topic) can be found in the following tables:
Visas tables volume 1
Visas tables volume 2
Visas tables volume 3
Sponsorship tables

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