Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers are currently housed in Northern Ireland in hotels, initial accommodation, dispersal accommodation and contingency accommodation.

Northern Ireland is not a dispersal area and asylum seekers are not routed between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Northern Ireland’s asylum population is proportionate to its population when compared to the UK. Because Northern Ireland is not a dispersal area, only those claiming for asylum in Northern Ireland are housed there.

Data is published quarterly on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, broken down by type, can be found within the Immigration system statistics data tables available on GOV.UK.

The latest release shows that on 31 December 2025, the following numbers of asylum seekers were being provided with accommodation:

• Hotel Accommodation – 268
• Dispersal accommodation – 2247
• Initial accommodation – 81
• Receiving subsistence only - 12

The next statistics release is due on 21 May 2026.