UK Net Migration 2025: 171,000 + Trend (ONS Provisional)

The detail

UK net migration in the year ending December 2025 stood at 171,000 per ONS provisional estimates - about half the YE December 2024 figure (updated to 331,000) and around one fifth of the revised peak of 944,000 in YE March 2023. Immigration fell to a provisional 813,000, from an updated 1,012,000 a year earlier, while emigration was 642,000 against 680,000. ONS notes that the Government introduced rule changes in 2024 and 2025, and that work- and study-related immigration dropped after them: most overseas students and care workers can no longer bring family members, the earnings needed for a Skilled Worker visa went up, the Health and Care route was closed to overseas care workers, and some middle-skilled occupations were removed from the Skilled Worker route.

The composition matters for the tax base. In YE December 2025, provisional net migration was 350,000 for non-EU+ nationals (down from 511,000 a year earlier), negative 42,000 for EU+ nationals and negative 136,000 for British nationals - more British and EU+ nationals left the UK long-term than arrived.

For population + Council Tax planning, net migration determines the labour-force trajectory. The ONS 2022-based national population projections assume long-term net international migration of 340,000 a year from the year ending mid-2028 onwards; the 2025 provisional outturn is running well below that assumption, with implications for State Pension funding, the NHS workforce and housing demand over a 15-25 year horizon.

Provisional estimates are revised as more complete data arrives, and the revisions can be large. ONS first estimated net migration for YE December 2024 at 431,000 (May 2025); the figure has since been updated to 331,000. The November 2025 ONS methods update added more administrative data sources to the long-term migration estimates.