Universal Credit: Migrants

(asked on 6th October 2025) - View Source
Questioner
Lord Godson Portrait
Lord Godson
(Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many Universal Credit claimants were recorded in non-UK immigration status groups in each year since 2019.

Answered by
Baroness Sherlock Portrait
Baroness Sherlock
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 12th November 2025

To access Universal Credit a person must be British, Irish, have a right of abode, or have a valid UK immigration status that permits recourse to public funds as well as meeting all the other entitlement conditions. The Department recently published Universal Credit Immigration status and Nationality summary statistics through ODS tables on GOV.UK.

For statistical production purposes, immigration status data has been categorised into 8 groups (further details provided in Table Guidance in the attached document).

Taken from the published statistics, the following table shows the number of people on Universal Credit by immigration status for each April from 2022 to 2025. Data is not held prior to April 2022.

Total number of people on Universal Credit by Immigration status for April 2022 to April 2025, Great Britain

Immigration status by month

CTA – UK, Ireland, Right of Abode

EU Settlement Scheme

Humanitarian

Refugee

Indefinite Leave to Remain (not EU Settlement Scheme)

Limited Leave to Remain (not EU Settlement Scheme) including Family Reunion

Other

No immigration status recorded on digital systems

Apr-25

6,400,356

765,451

78,780

90,217

204,378

75,506

33,300

31,468

Apr-24

5,519,088

720,365

49,817

107,486

142,884

84,558

27,134

25,894

Apr-23

4,859,348

671,620

47,020

75,372

113,548

77,363

16,590

35,846

Apr-22

4,611,046

644,847

3,221

64,423

95,612

68,883

6,484

51,600

Source: Universal Credit Immigration status and nationality summary statistics

Notes

  1. The latest Nationality recorded on the UC system declared by the claimant, reported across all previous UC claims.
  2. Immigration status is sourced from Habitual Residence Test (HRT) data. The latest immigration status is recorded and reported against the corresponding claim at the point in time it applied.
  3. Aligned UCFS Nationality and HRT data are available from April 2022 onwards only.
  4. Cells in these tables have had statistical disclosure control applied to avoid the release of confidential data. Due to adjustments totals may not be the sum of the individual cells.
  5. Figures for the most recent month are provisional. These figures will be subject to revision in subsequent releases in line with our statistical revisions policy.
  6. HRT revisions can occur and can be retrospectively applied and supersede previous decisions. Hence changes to previous months are possible.
  7. If a claimant has dual nationality and one is CTA then they will be recorded as CTA - UK, Ireland, Right of Abode.
  8. Non-EU individuals can be in the EUSS such as Non-EU family members of EU citizens.
  9. Non-Ukrainians/Non-Afghans can be in resettlement schemes.
  10. Right of Abode individuals include some groups of Commonwealth citizens.
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