Migration by country and route
How UK entry-clearance visa grants changed by recorded nationality and route, alongside separately labelled humanitarian grants and arrivals.
Visa grants are decisions, not observed arrivals.
Key findings
Work visa grants fell by 353,197 from their 2023 high. They reached 613,627 that year and stood at 260,430 in 2025.
Study grants were 196,358 below their 2022 high in 2025. The annual count was 427,340, compared with 623,698 at the peak.
Study grants exceeded work grants by 166,910 in 2025. Family grants stood at 65,971; each route is counted separately.
Work visa grants by nationality, 2025
Each bar shows 2025 grants for a recorded nationality. Other named nationalities sums those outside the top ten; the source's Other and unknown category stays separate.
Leading work nationalities, 2005–2025
- India
- Philippines
- Pakistan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Nigeria
Each line shows annual grants for one of the five nationalities with the most grants in the selected route in 2025. The same five are shown throughout.
Authorised route trends
UK calendar years, 2005–2025 · Work, study and family are visa grants; resettlement counts arrivals.
- Work grants
- Study grants
- Family grants
- Resettlement arrivals
Each line is an annual count for a separately labelled route. Work, study and family are entry-clearance grants; humanitarian observations retain their published event basis.
Humanitarian routes: grants and arrivals in 2025
Each bar shows the 2025 count for one humanitarian route; its label says whether the source records grants or arrivals.
The data
Home Office Vis_D02 counts issued entry-clearance visas by recorded nationality and visa type for the calendar years 2005–2025. Hum_01 separately records humanitarian route grants or arrivals from 2010 onwards. Country refers to nationality, which need not be the country a person travelled from.
Sources and limitations
Visa grants are administrative decisions, not a count of arrivals or long-term moves. Resettlement is recorded as arrivals, while the other humanitarian routes shown record grants, so they are not added into one total. The Home Office source omits a small number of visas processed in four locations in 2011–12. Individual-country long-term migration estimates are not available in the current ONS release.