Published14 October 2026
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has threatened to ban all Eritreans from entering the UK if the east African country's government does not accept more returns of small boat migrants and foreign national offenders.
From Thursday, Eritrean diplomats will face restrictions on their movement outside London. Fast-track visas will also be stopped for VIPs.
Ministers have previously pressured other countries into accepting returns by threatening visa bans.
Eritreans were the most common nationality among small boats migrants in the 12 months to June – accounting for 18% of arrivals, external, according to figures from the House of Commons Library.
The Eritrean embassy in London has been contacted for comment.
"Eritrea has had every chance to accept the return of criminals and those with no right to be in the UK. Unlike other countries, it has refused," said Mahmood.
She said she would not hesitate "to impose further measures on other countries refusing to co-operate".
The UK government accused the Eritrean authorities of "abruptly" withdrawing co-operation earlier this year.
The restrictions mean diplomats are banned from travelling 60km outside London without permission.
The Home Office said this mirrored restrictions on British officials in Eritrea's capital Asmara.
Dr Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said targeting Eritrea would have little impact.
"Eritrea is one of the major countries of origin for asylum seekers coming to the UK – we had roughly 7,000 asylum applications in the last year of data, roughly 8% of the total," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Most Eritereans who come and claim asylum are not removable at all – the government would never be in negotiations to remove them because 84% are successful at initial decision; more will be successful on appeal."
She added that about 1,400 people were initially refused asylum, but that this number would reduce after appeals.
Many young Eritreans try to leave the country – which is a one-party state – to avoid military conscription, which can last for decades.
Eritrea has never held an election since independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and there is no independent media. Critics of President Isaias Afwerki have been arrested and jailed for many years, often without trial.
Only four religions are permitted in the country – Orthodox Christianity, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical-Lutheran church of Eritrea – and followers of other religions have been locked up for years on end.
Earlier this year, the UK threatened bans against Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Restrictions were announced against the DRC last year, but the Home Office said these have been lifted after co-operation on returns improved.
Angola and Namibia both agreed changes before restrictions were introduced.
When announcing changes to the UK's asylum system in November, Mahmood said visa penalties would be applied to countries that failed to co-operate with returns policies.
Penalties included an "emergency brake" on visas for countries with high asylum claims until they take back citizens in the UK illegally.
But Sumption pointed out that the government may avoid targeting certain countries to avoid damaging trade relationships.
"If you're looking at overall numbers of people who are refused asylum and not returned to their country of origin, it would be places like Pakistan, also Bangladesh that are right at the top of the list," she said.
"But the collateral damage of a ban on visas for those countries when you have so many international students coming, for example, [and] a lot of people coming on work visas would be much greater than a country like Eritrea."
According to Home Office data, more than 20,400 people have arrived in the UK by small boats so far since the beginning of this year, down 40% from the same period last year.
There were more than 40,600 returns and deportations from the UK from July 2025 to June this year – an 8% increase on the same period last year.
Of those who had been returned, fewer than 6,000 have been convicted of a criminal offence.
UK migration data at a glance
Net migration (change in population), January 2025 to December 2025
Immigration (people arriving), January 2025 to December 2025
Emigration (people leaving), January 2025 to December 2025
Asylum applications, July 2025 to June 2026
Returns and deportations from the UK, July 2025 to June 2026
Arrivals by small boat, 1 January 2026 to 5 October 2026
Small boat crossings and other illegal arrivals
Between 1 January and 5 October 2026, a total of 20,478 people crossed the English Channel by small boat from France. This was down by 40% on the same period the previous year.
These crossings have become the most common way for people to be detected entering the UK illegally since 2020.
Nearly all those who arrive by small boat claim asylum. Under international law, this means they are allowed to stay in the country while their asylum application is considered.
Small boat arrivals made up 40% of asylum applications between July 2025 to June 2026.
Boats that arrived in the UK from 6 October 2025 to 5 October 2026 carried an average of 68 people. This has more than doubled since 2021.
Experts say overcrowding in boats makes crossings riskier. At least 84 people died while attempting to cross the Channel in 2024, according to the United Nations (UN).
When looking at the scale of small boats crossings, the number of these arrivals is about 5% of the size of total immigration into the UK from January 2025 to December 2025.
The government has pledged to “smash the gangs” behind these crossings in order to reduce the numbers.
People from Eritrea accounted for 18% of all arrivals from July 2025 to June 2026.
In the latest figures covering January 2025 to December 2025, at least 2,335 people who arrived by small boat were found to be potential victims of human trafficking or other forms of modern slavery, according to the Home Office.
Another 4,712 people were detected entering the UK without permission via other methods including hiding in vehicles, travelling on ferries or through airports from July 2025 to June 2026. This was down by 17% on the same period the previous year.
There are also individuals who arrive legally, for example via a work or study visa, and then overstay their limit.
The total number of people who live in the UK illegally after arriving legally is not known.
Asylum applications and hotels
An asylum seeker is someone who wants to be in the UK because they say they cannot live safely in their own country due to persecution or violence.
The government must house an asylum seeker if they cannot financially support themselves while their claim is being considered. There were 89,089 people in asylum accommodation as of June 2026.
About 18% of those people, 16,021, were in hotels. These are used when there is not enough shared housing available, such as houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) or former military sites.
The government has pledged to stop the use of hotels by 2029.
More people are in hotels across the south of England than elsewhere in the UK, while HMOs are more common in the north of England and Scotland.
Type in a postcode or the name of a local council below to see how many asylum seekers are housed in the area
A total of 85,891 people applied for asylum in the UK from July 2025 to June 2026. This was down by 21% on the same period in the previous year.
Most people who arrive in the UK by small boat claim asylum, but they were only 40% of all asylum seekers from July 2025 to June 2026.
The rest include people who arrived by other illegal means or who came to the UK legally and applied for asylum while holding, or just after holding, a valid visa.
It can take years for the government to decide whether someone should be granted asylum.
In June 2026, 40,168 people – across 32,401 asylum applications – were waiting for an initial decision. The number of people awaiting an initial decision was down by 56% on the previous year.
As of June 2026, a further 90,341 refused asylum applications were part of a second backlog, waiting the outcome of an appeal in the courts. This was up by 51% on the previous year.
Together, these initial decision and appeal cases form the government’s total asylum applications backlog, which it has pledged to clear.
Refugee status was granted in about 38% of asylum decisions made by the Home Office from July 2025 to June 2026.
About 39% of asylum appeal cases concluded between January 2026 to December 2026 resulted in a previous refusal decision being overturned.
Returns and deportations from the UK
The government requires people who are in the UK, but no longer have permission to live or work in the country, to leave.
This is called a return and can happen voluntarily or involuntarily.
People can lose the right to be in the UK for different reasons, such as a visa expiring, an asylum claim being refused, or by receiving a criminal conviction that results in deportation.
There were 40,605 returns from July 2025 to June 2026. This was up by 8% on the same period the previous year.
That number of returns is equivalent to about 6% of total emigration from the UK from January 2025 to December 2025.
Of all returns from July 2025 to June 2026:
5,962 had been convicted of a criminal offence
12,568 had lodged an asylum claim at some point
3,310 had arrived in the UK by small boat
People from India made up 27% of all returns from July 2025 to June 2026.
The UK is trialing a scheme with France to return people who arrived in the country on a small boat.
For every person the UK sends back to France, the UK will accept an equal number of asylum seekers.
This is called the "one in, one out" deal. As of 30 June 2026, 1,087 people have been returned through this arrangement.
Returns can happen in different ways. "Enforced returns", which includes deportations, means the government arranges transport to return people to a different country. In some cases, people are escorted by officers.
All other returns are "voluntary". This means a person has agreed to leave and may receive government help with travel and other costs to help facilitate the return.
Some people classed as leaving the country voluntarily do so completely independently and without any government knowledge or involvement.
Independent returns made up 34% of the total from July 2025 to June 2026.
Visas for legal migration
Most people who come to the UK do so legally, after being granted a visa before they travel.
A visa gives someone permission to enter or stay in the UK for a specific purpose, such as work, study or joining family members.
There were 727,487 people who came to the UK via visas from July 2025 to June 2026, not including visitors or people transiting through the UK. This was down by 15% on the same period the previous year.
That does not mean all those people travelled to the UK, only that they were approved to do so.
The most common type of visa people came to the UK on was study, which made up 53% of all visa entries from July 2025 to June 2026.
People from China were the most common group to come to the UK on study visas, making up 23% of the total.
Together, people from China and India accounted for nearly half of all study visas. This has been the case for many years.
The EU and UK monitor the number of people crossing borders in the Mediterranean and English Channel by sea without permission.
There were 139,288 sea arrivals to the UK, Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus from August 2025 to July 2026.
Crossings to the UK accounted for about 22% of the combined total.
Sea arrivals into mainland Europe peaked in 2015, when the UN said more than a million people crossed the Mediterranean.
The top three countries with the most people claiming asylum from April 2025 to March 2026 were Spain with 133,795, Italy with 124,740 and France with 111,320.
The UK ranked at number five for asylum claims over the same period when compared with 26 other European countries with populations over one million.
When adjusted for population size, the UK ranks at number 10 for asylum applications per 100,000 people.
Net migration measures the overall change in a country’s population due to migration over a given period. It is everyone coming into the country (immigration) minus everyone who leaves (emigration).
The latest available data to compare the UK with other European nations is January 2024 to December 2024.
At that point, the countries with the biggest increase in their population were Spain with 626,000, Germany with 494,000 and the UK with 331,000, after taking into account the people who left the country, and those who arrived.
When adjusting for population size, the UK was in position 11 for increase in population due to migration, alongside 13 other European countries with comparable data per 100,000 residents.
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