UK net migration dropped to an estimated 171,000 last year, the lowest level since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The figures for the 12 months to December are down 48% compared to the previous year (331,000), according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It is the first time the estimate – which is the difference between the number of people moving to the UK and the number of people leaving the country – has fallen below 200,000 since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In the year to March 2021 it stood at 132,000, at a time when travel restrictions were still in place to contain the virus and the post-Brexit immigration system had been introduced.
The continued fall in net migration is being driven by fewer people from outside the EU arriving in the UK for work, the ONS said.
The latest figures also showed that 246,000 UK nationals left Britain in the year ending December 2025, slightly lower than the 257,000 who are estimated to have left the previous year.
Meanwhile more British citizens living abroad are choosing to stay away, with the number of UK nationals moving back home falling from 140,000 in 2024 to 110,000 in 2025.
While it has been reported that young Brits are flocking away from the UK, the ONS said it would be inaccurate to say that young people were leaving in “record” numbers.
This is because the statistics agency had not published emigration figures with an age breakdown since 2019.
But the ONS said that new estimates for emigration rates of Britons in the 16 to 24 and 25 to 34 categories were “relatively stable” between 2022 and 2025, with a slight decline last year.
Elsewhere, fewer asylum seekers are being housed in hotels with 20,885 in this situation at the end of March 2026, down 35% from last year. It is the lowest figure since data was first reported in 2022.
Labour pledged to bring down net migration in their election campaign two years ago and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has promised even more stringent measures intended to further reduce numbers.
She said: “Net migration has fallen by 82% in just three years.
“We will always welcome those who contribute to this country and wish to build a better life here. But we must restore order and control to our borders. As these statistics show, real progress has been made, but there is still work to do.
“That is why I am introducing a skills-based migration system that rewards contribution and ends Britain’s reliance on cheap overseas workers.”
But Labour’s opponents have been critical of the drive to cut immigration.
First Minister John Swinney last year said that Scotland needed immigration to bolster its working-age population.
Speaking at a press conference in May 2025, Swinney said he was "profoundly concerned by the direction of travel that is being taken on migration" under Labour.
He said: "I made this point to the Prime Minister when I met him on Friday – that the changing dynamics of our labour market and the need for us to encourage migration to support our working age population has to be recognised in the approach that is taken to migration in the United Kingdom.”
Describing the issue as a "deadly serious" threat to prosperity, Swinney added: "If those individuals are not able to make a contribution to our social care system, then I don’t know how we will deliver a social care system in Scotland."
