The number of migrants reaching the UK by small boat has fallen sharply year-on-year, with 14,526 arrivals recorded between January 1 and August 1. According to provisional Home Office figures, that is 43% below the 25,436 arrivals at the same stage in 2025, 14% below the 16,903 in 2024, and just below the 14,732 in 2023. It is also 15% lower than the total recorded by early August 2022, when the full-year record of 45,774 arrivals was set.
July crossings and boat occupancy
July saw 2,316 migrants arrive by small boat, the lowest number for that month since 2020. The crossings were made in 32 boats, giving an average of 72 people per boat, the highest monthly average since records began in 2018.
One dinghy that crossed in July carried 165 people, the largest number recorded in a single boat to date. The annual average per boat has risen every year since 2018, from 7 that year and 11 in 2019 to 13 in 2020, 28 in 2021, 41 in 2022, 49 in 2023, 53 in 2024, 62 in 2025, and 67 so far in 2026.
Where arrivals come from
Nationality data, published quarterly, covers the year to the end of March 2026. Four nationalities accounted for more than half of all arrivals in that period: Eritrean (17.9%), Afghan (11.4%), Sudanese (11.2%) and Iranian (11.1%). They were followed by Somali (9.5%), Iraqi (4.1%), Ethiopian (4.1%) and Syrian (3.4%).
Eritrean has topped the list for the first time in a 12-month period ending in March. Previously, Afghan was the most common nationality in both 2024/25 and 2023/24, Albanian topped the list in 2022/23, and Iranian did so in each year from 2018/19 to 2021/22.
Asylum claims and decisions
Home Office figures for asylum decisions, which are subject to a longer processing delay, run to the end of December 2025. Of the 187,779 migrants who have arrived by small boat since 2018, 178,845 (95%) claimed asylum.
Of those claimants, 79,589 (44.5%) had been granted refugee status or another form of leave by the end of 2025, 53,305 (29.8%) had been refused, 33,413 (18.7%) were recorded as withdrawn, and 12,538 (7.0%) were still awaiting a decision.
Separate figures show that 42% of people who claimed asylum in the UK in the year to March 2026 had arrived after crossing the Channel by small boat.
