FOI reference: FOI-2025-3051
You asked
Please could you let me know the total of immigrants who have come to stay in the UK since 1975 and how many have left the country since that time?
When have most immigrants left the UK?
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately, we do not hold the exact data you are requesting. We do not distinguish in our emigration estimates whether those individuals emigrating were originally immigrants.
The following information may be useful for you.
Please see Long-term international migration 2.00, citizenship, UK (Discontinued after 2019) - Office for National Statistics data that goes back to 1964.
For more recent data please see our latest Long Term International Migration estimates (these are Year Ending June 2012 to our most recent provisional estimate Year Ending December 2024).
Traditionally, the International Passenger Survey (IPS) was the main source for estimating international migration to and from the UK. However, we had long acknowledged that the IPS had been stretched beyond its original purpose and that we needed to consider all available sources to understand international migration.
In March 2020, the IPS was suspended because of the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In response, we have accelerated our work to transform how migration is measured and are moving towards producing administrative data-based migration estimates, supported by statistical modelling.
While the IPS resumed operation in January 2021, the decision was taken and announced in the August 2020 Migration Statistics Quarterly Report (MSQR) that going forward we would continue to focus on developing methods for measuring international migration using administrative data and statistical modelling, given the limitations of the IPS.
We do have Long term international immigration, emigration and net migration flows which dates from 2021 to December 2024.
The Home Office may be able to provide you with further data.