This data may be out of date — the source may have published a newer figure.
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Asylum backlog
Number of asylum cases awaiting an initial decision from the Home Office.
173 thousands
+3.0% vs previous period
As of 2024-12
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.
Trend summary generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 on 27 February 2025. Contains no editorial judgement — describes direction, magnitude, and official projections only.
About this indicator
- Source
- Home Office
- Update frequency
- Monthly
- Last updated
- 27 February 2025 Data may be out of date
- Licence
- OGL v3
- Rising trend is…
- Negative
Statistics
- Latest
- 173.0 thousands
- Period high
- 173.0
- Period low
- 80.0
- Period average
- 124.0