Spotlight
Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending December 2024
What's in the bulletin?
- Long-term net migration is down by almost 50%. The number of people immigrating minus the number of people emigrating is provisionally estimated to be 431,000 in year ending (YE) December 2024, compared with 860,000 a year earlier.
- This change is driven by a decrease in immigration from non-EU+ nationals, where we are seeing reductions in people arriving on work- and study-related visas, and an increase in emigration, driven by people who came on student visas after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic now leaving the UK.
- The provisional estimate for total long-term immigration for YE December 2024 is 948,000, a decrease of almost a third from the revised YE December 2023 estimate of 1,326,000 and the first time it has been below 1 million since YE March 2022.
Reason for international migration, international students update: May 2025
International student migration to the UK, 2019 to 2024. Analysis relates to non-EU+ throughout unless stated otherwise. These are official statistics in development.
Measuring migration: the story behind the headlines
In this interactive article, we take you behind the headlines and use the latest data to answer questions about international migration. We also explain why measuring migration is harder than you might think.
Datasets related to International migration
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International migration – table of contents
Tool to locate the datasets of Long-Term International Migration and International Passenger Survey estimates.
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Long-term international immigration, emigration and net migration flows, provisional
Estimates for UK immigration, emigration and net migration, year ending June 2012 to year ending December 2024. These are official statistics in development. To access the most up-to-date data for each time period, please use the most recently published dataset.
Publications related to International migration
Statistical bulletins
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Long-term international migration, provisional: year ending December 2024
Estimates of UK long-term international migration, year ending June 2012 to year ending December 2024. These are official statistics in development. Long-term refers to people entering or leaving the UK for a period of at least 12 months.
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International migration, England and Wales: Census 2021
International migration, including country of birth, passports held and year of arrival, Census 2021 data.
Articles
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Reason for international migration, international students update
International student migration to the UK, 2019 to 2024. Analysis relates to non-EU+ throughout unless stated otherwise. These are official statistics in development.
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International migration research, progress update
An update on international migration methods and research to further develop admin-based migration estimates (ABMEs).
Find, compare and visualise statistics about places within the United Kingdom.