Direct welfare payments to British households containing at least one migrant reached a record £11.9 billion ($15.9 billion) in 2025, according to Department for Work and Pensions figures analyzed by the Centre for Migration Control and reported by the Daily Telegraph.
The number marks a sharp escalation in spending. In 2024, £9.5 billion ($12.7 billion) went to such households — meaning the 2025 total represents an increase of more than 25 percent in a single year. Compared with 2023, when the figure stood at £7.5 billion ($10 billion), the rise is more than 58 percent.
According to the analysis, roughly one in six Universal Credit payments — 15.6 percent — went to households with at least one migrant. The data also showed that 65 percent of the payments, amounting to £7.7 billion ($10.3 billion), went to claimants classified as unemployed.
What the figures cover — and what they leave out
Universal Credit, introduced in 2013, consolidated several separate welfare programs into a single monthly payment designed to support unemployed people and those on low incomes. Under current eligibility rules, migrants can apply for Universal Credit if they hold refugee status, have been granted post-Brexit EU settled status, or have secured indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
The DWP numbers showed taxpayer-funded payments were split roughly evenly between households with migrants from inside the European Economic Area and those from outside it.
As significant as the £11.9 billion figure is, the source material notes it captures only one channel through which public money flows to migrant households. Universal Credit does not account for spending routed through the education or healthcare systems, nor does it capture migrants who have acquired citizenship and then access welfare, or the children of migrants. The data set also excludes the billions spent on housing and feeding mostly illegal migrants who claim asylum and are housed at taxpayer expense in hotels and other accommodation across the country.
Labour weighs longer waits for residency
The release of the figures comes as the Labour government is said to be debating proposals from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to extend the waiting period before migrants can apply for indefinite leave to remain — from five years to ten, and to 15 years for foreign care workers. Any such change would delay when newcomers become eligible for the full suite of welfare support, including Universal Credit.
Whether the government ultimately suspends or delays ILR could prove pivotal to the UK’s long-term economic outlook. Analysis cited from Reform UK found that the so-called “Boriswave” migrants who arrived between 2020 and 2024 — after Brexit freed the UK from EU free-movement rules under then-prime minister Boris Johnson — could cost the state £622.5 billion over the course of their lives if granted permanent residency.
Reform’s counter-proposal
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has taken a more sweeping position. The party says it would abolish indefinite leave to remain altogether, replacing it with an American-style five-year renewable work visa. It has also pledged to bar all foreign nationals from receiving Universal Credit, including EU migrants who gained access as part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement with Brussels.
Reform estimates that removing foreigners from the Universal Credit rolls would save taxpayers £21 billion ($28.5 billion) a year by 2029 — a figure that, if accurate, would exceed the current annual spend on migrant households many times over.
The debate now sits at the intersection of welfare policy, immigration control and fiscal planning, with the two main opposing visions — Labour’s gradual tightening of residency requirements versus Reform’s proposed dismantling of permanent-residency entitlements — set to shape the terms of the next general election.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/21/migrant-households-receiving-record-amount-of-direct-welfare-payments-in-britain/