The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high while the backlog in cases has dropped below 100,000 for the first time in four years, official figures show.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
The number is up 14% from 97,107 in the year to June 2024, according to figures published by the Home Office.
Of the claims, 39% were made by people who arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel.
A researcher said there are several potential reasons for the rise in asylum applications.
Nuni Jorgensen, of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: “They include the intensification of smuggling activity (especially across the Channel), larger numbers of people claiming asylum after arriving on visas, a larger number of pending and recently refused asylum seekers in Europe.
“It is hard to know to what extent the repeal of the previous government’s asylum policies has contributed, not least because those policies were never fully implemented and their impact was unclear.”
The most common nationalities among asylum applicants in the year to June 2025 were Pakistani (10.1% of the total), Afghan (7.5%), Iranian (7.0%) and Eritrean (6.7%).
The record level of applications comes as the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their claims dropped to 90,812 at the end of June.
This is down 17% from 109,536 at the end of March and down 24% from 118,882 a year earlier at the end of June 2024.
The total peaked at 175,457 at the end of June 2023, which was the highest figure since current records began in 2010.
Dr Jorgensen added that reducing the backlog in processing asylum claims is “critical” to any plan to reduce the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.
It comes as ministers face fresh pressure over hotels after Epping Forest District Council was granted a temporary injunction by the High Court on Tuesday, which will force asylum seekers to be removed from a hotel in the Essex town.
The Government is bracing for further legal challenges from councils across the country, while scrambling for an alternative to house the Epping asylum seekers elsewhere.
Dr Jorgensen said: “Although the initial decision backlog is down since Labour came to office, a new backlog has built up in the courts due to appeals against unsuccessful decisions.
“The Government will be hoping that its enforcement activities and the new returns agreement with France will reduce the number of people applying for asylum and requiring accommodation, but there is no sign of this in the data so far.”
The Refugee Council said “good work” to cut the backlog is “at risk” of poor quality decisions.
Its chief executive, Enver Solomon, said: “Right now nearly half of appeals are successful.
“These mistakes have life-changing consequences for the people we work with, who have fled persecution in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan.”
Elsewhere separate figures published on Thursday show the number of enforced returns of people who have no legal right to stay in the UK rose slightly in the latest quarter.
Some 2,323 returns by the Home Office took place in April-June 2025, up from 2,314 in January-March this year.
A total of 9,072 enforced returns took place in the year to June, up 25% from 7,253 in the previous year and the highest figure for a 12-month period since the year to December 2018 (9,236).
The Government has vowed to ramp up removals of migrants with no right to be in the UK to deter those coming or staying in the country illegally.
Of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the English Channel, some 569 people were returned in April-June this year.
This is down from 605 in the previous quarter, and is made up of both enforced and voluntary returns, where people who face deportation left of their own accord.
Some 2,330 migrants who arrived in small boats were returned during the year to June, down from 2,516 in the previous 12 months.
Of the 2,330 returns in the year to June, 75% were Albanian nationals.
