Accredited official statistics

How many people come to the UK each year?

Published 24 May 2018

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-march-2018/how-many-people-come-to-the-uk-each-year

Back to ‘Immigration Statistics, year ending March 2018’ content page.

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Data relate to the year ending March 2018 and all comparisons are with the year ending March 2017, unless indicated otherwise.

This section contains data on:

  • 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 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 unless stated otherwise

We provide a more detailed commentary on an annual basis. This is included in ‘Immigration Statistics, April to June 2017’.

1. Key facts

There were 137.9 million passenger arrivals in the year ending March 2018, including returning UK residents, an increase of 6.0 million compared to the previous year - a record number. This increase was divided between:

  • 3.1 million more arrivals by British, other EEA and Swiss nationals (up 3% to 118.0 million)
  • 2.9 million more by non-EEA nationals (up 17% to 19.9 million)

The latest available data estimating the number of EEA and Swiss nationals entering the UK is for the year end September 2017 and shows there were 39.8 million such arrivals.

These numbers represent the number of occasions when a person entered the UK, not the number of distinct individuals.

The majority of non-EEA visitors do not require a visa. For other visitors and for other purposes, there were over 2.7 million visas granted in the year ending March 2018. Of these, nearly 2.1 million (77%) were to visit and 8% were for study.

Passenger arrivals to the UK, by nationality, 2008 to 2017

The chart shows the total number of arrivals made into the UK by broad nationality between 2004 and 2017. Global recession starts in 2008 and continues into 2009. The data are available in Admissions table ad 01.

Source:

Table ad 01 (Admissions tables).

2. Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes, by visa type, year ending March 2018

The following diagram illustrates the type and volume of visas granted in the year ending March 2018. As noted 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.

Sources:

Table vi 01 q (Entry clearance visas tables, volume 1).
Table vi 06 q o (Entry clearance visas tables, volume 3).

Chart note:

  1. Dependants joining or accompanying.

3. 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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