Small boat crossings
People arriving in the UK via small boats across the English Channel each year.
41.5m
+12.6% vs 2024
As of 2025
Historical trend
Trend summary
36,816 people arrived in the UK via small boat crossings in 2024, a 19% decrease from 45,774 in 2023.
Trend
- Small boat arrivals rose from around 300 in 2018 to a peak of 45,774 in 2022 before declining to 36,816 in 2024.
- The decline from the 2022 peak follows introduction of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and a UK-France joint operational agreement.
- Arrivals in 2024 remain substantially higher than any pre-2021 year.
Context
- Home Office publishes irregular migration statistics monthly; figures cover detected crossings of the English Channel and North Sea in small vessels.
- These figures represent detected crossings; the true total may differ from the recorded figure.
Commentary contains no editorial judgement — describes direction, magnitude, and official projections only.
About this indicator
- Source
- Home Office
- Update frequency
- Annual
- Last updated
- 22 June 2026
- Licence
- OGL v3
- Direction
- ↑ Rising
Statistics
- Latest
- 41.5m
- Period high
- 41.5m
- Period low
- 36.8m
- Period average
- 39.1m