The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in hotels has fallen to the lowest level for 18 months, Home Office figures show.
The statistics, released on Thursday, also show a drop in asylum approvals including claimants from Syria and Afghanistan. The figures have been seized upon by the government as evidence that Labour’s tightening of the asylum system is working, but a refugee charity has expressed concern that the clampdown is turning away people seeking refuge from war and oppressive regimes.
According to the statistics, there were 30,657 people staying in hotel accommodation while awaiting a decision on their asylum claim at the end of December.
The issue of people being housed in hotels rose to prominence last year with disorder and protests outside some sites. The number of asylum seekers in hotels peaked at 56,018 at the end of September 2023 under the Conservative government, but dropped to a record low of 29,561 at the end of June 2024 just before the general election.
The latest data showed December levels were 15% lower than the previous quarter at the end of September, when there were 36,273 people in hotels. Figures for hotels, which represent the total population at that point in time rather than across the three-month period, date back to December 2022.
Overall, the figures show that 100,625 people applied for asylum in 2025, down 4% on 2024. The number of people arriving in the UK on small boats increased by 13% year-on-year to 45,774. Small boat arrivals made up 41% of the total number of people claiming asylum last year, with Eritrean being the most common nationality.
Home Office data shows 605 small boat migrants arrived in the UK on Wednesday – the most arrivals on a single day so far this year.
Analysis by the University of Oxford’s migration observatory showed that faster processing has led to a sharp fall in the number of people awaiting an initial decision from just under 125,000 to about 64,000 from 2024 to 2025. However, the reduction has not had a large impact on the total number of asylum claimants because applications have shifted from asylum claims to appeals.
Ministry of Justice data indicates that the total number of people awaiting the result of an appeal against an asylum decision doubled to almost 70,000 in the year ending September 2025.
Just over 1,800 people were granted protection through resettlement schemes – a 35% annual fall on people coming to the UK through safe and legal routes. More than 8,300 children overall were granted asylum during this period.
Alex Norris, the minister for border security, said: “Genuine refugees are receiving the protection they need, while those with false claims are being identified and returned to their home country. As a result, we are reducing the numbers in taxpayer-funded asylum accommodation, with 45% less hotel use than at the peak under the last government.”
In the year to December 2025, the asylum grant rate was 42%, lower than the grant rate of 47% in 2024, and substantially below the peak grant rate of 77% in 2022. There were significant drops in grant rates for some nationalities, with Syrians falling from 98% in 2024 to 9% in 2025, Afghans from 51% to 34%, Somalis from 49% to 35%, and Pakistanis from 53% to 35%.
Louise Calvey, the director of Asylum Matters, said: “Fewer people moving to this country is nothing to celebrate or strive for. People who come here to work and raise their families in peace make us all richer, both economically and culturally. Instead, our government’s hostile policy risks making us all poorer – and we’ve not yet seen the impacts of its latest attack on indefinite leave to remain.”
Imran Hussain, the director of external affairs at the Refugee Council, said: “Although the backlog of initial asylum applications has been brought down, poor-quality decisions mean that many people are still waiting in hotels as they go through the appeals process.”
