Asylum seekers in the UK: common questions in 2025

MPs often receive questions from constituents about the UK’s asylum system and financial support for people seeking asylum. Some of the most common recent issues are covered in brief below. Hyperlinks give sources and further reading.

Why are people who arrive by small boat allowed to stay in the UK?

Almost everyone arriving on a small boat claims asylum. Under UK law, which reflects the United Nations Refugee Convention, someone with a pending asylum case cannot be sent back to their home country. That is because the basis of an asylum claim is fear of persecution or serious harm at home.

If the person’s asylum claim is accepted, they are granted refugee status (or humanitarian protection status) which gives them legal residence in the UK.

If the asylum claim is refused, the person can legally be removed. But in practice, removal may be difficult if their home country does not co-operate. As former Home Secretary Jack Straw told the Financial Times in August 2025, “no plane to Tehran would try to land there unless that had already been agreed with the government of Iran”.

Why aren’t small boat arrivals arrested and detained?

All unauthorised migrants should be “administratively arrested” by immigration officers and briefly detained for questioning. By contrast, criminal arrests and prosecutions are only pursued if there are aggravating factors.

Most asylum seekers are not detained beyond the initial examination. UK law only allows for people to be detained for immigration purposes “where there is a realistic prospect of removal within a reasonable period”. Someone who has claimed asylum usually has a legal right to be in the UK until that claim is decided, so there will be no realistic prospect of removal within a reasonable period given that asylum decisions take months or years to process.

As such, people in asylum accommodation (including hotels) are “free to come and go as they please”.

Isn’t it perfectly legal for people to enter the UK by any means necessary if claiming asylum?

It is a criminal offence for foreign nationals to arrive in the UK without advance clearance (such as a visa). Claiming asylum does not provide immunity against criminal prosecution for illegal entry.

On the other hand, being accused or convicted of illegal entry is not a ground for refusing someone asylum under UK law. This reflects the Refugee Convention, which envisages that refugees may be “unlawfully in the country of refuge” (article 31).

People must be physically in the UK to lodge an asylum claim. It is not possible to claim asylum from abroad and there is no asylum visa.

Can’t asylum be refused if the person could have claimed it in another safe country, such as France?

Successive UK governments have argued that people should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. The UN Refugee Agency says this is not required by the Refugee Convention or international law.

People who have passed through a safe country can nevertheless be denied access to the UK asylum system. The law allows the Home Secretary to declare an asylum claim inadmissible if the person was previously in another country where they could have claimed asylum.

This is not enforced unless another safe country is likely to accept that person “within a reasonable period of time”. The Home Office has not been able to arrange this in practice, although it has begun a pilot scheme with France.

Why are unauthorised migrants given money and housing?

Unauthorised migrants who are outside the asylum system are not allowed to claim most forms of social welfare. Subject to some limited exceptions, they are ineligible for mainstream benefits, including social housing, and excluded from many local council support schemes.

By contrast, asylum seekers who say they are destitute can apply to the Home Office for accommodation or a subsistence payment (typically both) while they are waiting for a decision on their asylum claim. This is commonly referred to as ‘asylum support’.

Asylum support is provided because asylum seekers are not eligible for mainstream benefits and not usually allowed to work. In 2005, the courts found that leaving asylum seekers to sleep on the street for more than a short period would likely be a breach of human rights law.

What money and housing are destitute asylum seekers entitled to?

£49.18 per week, for people living in self-catered accommodation or receiving subsistence-only support. People in accommodation where meals are provided get £9.95 a week. Some additional payments are available to certain groups, including pregnant women and children under four.

Most people apply for both the subsistence payment and asylum accommodation. There is no requirement to provide any particular type of accommodation, but the courts have said it must ensure “a dignified standard of living” in light of the person’s individual needs. Nevertheless, there has been recurring criticism of poor quality or substandard accommodation.

Why are asylum seekers given hotel rooms?

In the UK, asylum accommodation is generally provided in the community rather than in large-scale reception centres. Under the long-standing dispersal policy, asylum seekers are offered accommodation on a no-choice basis across the UK.

Dispersal accommodation has traditionally been a mix of furnished flats, houses or rooms in houses of multiple occupation. In recent years, hotels have been added to the mix because demand for dispersal accommodation has outstripped supply, as have a small number of large-scale sites.

How many asylum hotels are in my area and where are they?

The Home Office does not publish the locations of asylum accommodation (hotels or otherwise) “for safety and security reasons”.

The department does publish the number of asylum seekers in different kinds of asylum accommodation, broken down by council area (not by parliamentary constituency). The latest breakdown can be downloaded as a spreadsheet. For further help, MPs’ offices can contact the Library.

When can asylum seekers be granted residence rights in the UK?

There are two main types of legal status that can be granted to people who claim asylum. These are refugee status and humanitarian protection.

Under the immigration rules, the central requirement for refugee status is that the person be “a refugee, as defined in Article 1 of the 1951 Refugee Convention”. Article 1 of the Refugee Convention defines a refugee as someone who “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country”.

Humanitarian protection does not require the person to be a refugee under the 1951 Convention but instead allows them to be granted asylum if they would face a “a real risk of suffering serious harm”. The immigration rules define serious harm to mean the death penalty, unlawful killing, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or “serious and individual threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict”.

Judges have significant influence over who is granted asylum. This is because appeal courts set precedents on, for example, who can be considered part of a “particular social group”; and because most asylum seekers have the right to appeal to a lower-level tribunal to have a refusal of asylum reconsidered by a judge.

People granted either refugee status or humanitarian protection status have the right to work in the UK and access to the welfare system on the same basis as British citizens and permanent residents.

Does the European Convention on Human Rights allow people to claim asylum in the UK?

Refugee status is granted under the UN Refugee Convention rather than the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But the rules on humanitarian protection status reflect Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR. If there were no Refugee Convention, a lot of asylum seekers would still be able to claim humanitarian protection.

It is also possible for unauthorised migrants, incuding failed asylum seekers, to rely on the ECHR to contest their removal from the UK. This might be because they have built up family ties in the UK or have lived here illegally for a very long time. From 2015 to 2024, immigration judges granted over 60,000 ECHR appeals against removal from the UK, some of which will have involved people previously refused asylum.

Further reading House of Commons Library

• CBP-9790, No recourse to public funds
• CBP-6847, People from abroad: what benefits can they claim?
• CBP-1909, Asylum support: Accommodation and financial support for asylum seekers
• CBP-1403, Asylum statistics
• Insight, Is planning permission required to house asylum seekers in hotels?

Other resources

• Free Movement, What is the refugee definition in international and UK law?
• Migration Observatory, Asylum and refugee resettlement in the UK,
• Migration Watch, Channel Crossing Tracker
• Right to Remain, The Right to Remain Toolkit