Asylum backlog
Number of asylum cases awaiting an initial decision from the Home Office.
64.4m
-48.4% vs 2024
As of 2025
Historical trend
Trend summary
The asylum initial decision backlog stood at approximately 90,000 cases at end-2024, down from a peak of over 175,000 in mid-2023.
Trend
- The backlog grew from around 30,000 in 2018 to over 175,000 by mid-2023 as decision-making slowed.
- Accelerated decision-making from 2023 reduced the backlog significantly; it has not returned to pre-2018 levels.
Context
- Home Office publishes asylum statistics quarterly; the backlog is a stock measure of cases awaiting an initial decision.
- Backlog figures exclude cases at appeal stage, which are published separately by HMCTS.
Commentary contains no editorial judgement — describes direction, magnitude, and official projections only.
About this indicator
- Source
- Home Office
- Update frequency
- Monthly
- Last updated
- 22 June 2026
- Licence
- OGL v3
- Direction
- ↓ Falling
Statistics
- Latest
- 64.4m
- Period high
- 124.8m
- Period low
- 64.4m
- Period average
- 94.6m