Channel Crossings and Irregular Arrivals

From 2018 to 2025 inclusive, around 193,000 people were detected reaching the UK in small boats. In 2025, around 41,500 people were detected crossing the Channel in small boats. That was 13% more than the year before, and the second-highest annual figure. In 2022, about 46,000 people crossed the Channel in this way.

Small boat arrivals in the YE June 2026 (33,374) were 23% lower than in the YE June 2025 (43,309) but remain broadly in line with levels seen in the YE June 2024 (31,493) and YE June 2022 (35,356). Small boat arrivals were relatively low from 2018 to 2020, with 10,608 arrivals in total across these 3 years. However, since the YE December 2021 there have been between 29,000 and 46,000 small boat arrivals each year, with the highest number of arrivals in the YE December 2022 (45,774).

Numbers fell considerably in the first eight months of 2026. There were 16,300 arrivals between the start of the year and 9 September, 47% less than in the same period of 2025, and 27% less than in 2024.

Attempts detected on exit towards the UK across the Channel, which include both those who reached the UK and those prevented from leaving, fell by 43% to some 30 900, with around 4 500 recorded in September.

Both UK policy and non-policy factors are likely to have contributed to recent changes in boat arrivals, but it is difficult to isolate the effect of each factor. Just as it is difficult to say whether government policy contributed to higher boat arrivals in 2025, it is hard to know how much restrictive measures contributed to reducing them in 2026.

In the YE June 2026, there were 38,086 detected arrivals via illegal entry routes, 22% fewer than in the YE June 2025. People arriving via small boat accounted for 88% of these arrivals, covered in more detail in Section 2. Small boats have been the predominant recorded entry method for people arriving via illegal routes since 2020, when detected arrivals increased rapidly and detections on other illegal entry methods declined. This decline was likely in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic making other methods of illegal entry, such as air or ferry, less viable.

Not all people arriving to the UK via illegal entry routes will be detected and the proportion of arrivals detected will vary by method and route. Therefore, it is not advisable to directly compare recorded detection numbers on different methods of entry. However, some broad trends can be observed.

In the YE June 2026, 1,962 people were detected in the UK, within 72 hours of arriving via an illegal route, a decrease of 11% compared to YE June 2025 (2,201) and 77% fewer than the recent peak of 8,535 in the YE September 2019. Many of those detected will have arrived clandestinely, for example in a vehicle or on a ferry.

Increased enforcement of other unauthorised modes of entry, such as lorries and trains, is likely to have contributed to the initial rise of the small boat route into the UK. After 2014, the British and French governments invested in enhanced security in and around French ports and the Eurotunnel. Measures included more perimeter fencing, additional CCTV, increased patrols, CO2 detectors, thermal imaging, and heartbeat monitors. Several organisations have argued these measures led to more people crossing in small boats – including the UK’s Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank.

Between 2010 and 2015 nearly 164,000 attempts at “clandestine entry” to the UK were detected at border controls in Brussels, Calais, Coquelles, Dunkirk, Lille and Paris.

However, these attempts weren’t evenly spread across the six years so the average isn’t all that helpful. Most of the attempts in those six years happened in 2015 when 84,000 were made.

The key word here is “attempts”. One person might try to enter the UK a number of times and be counted each time they do. It doesn’t mean that 164,000 individual people tried.

Border Force prevented a weekly average of 1,071 attempts by migrants trying to get to the UK from France last year to Kent, amounting to more than 56,000 attempts across the twelve months. This compares to 81,000 foiled attempts by migrants in 2015, the highest recorded so far.

From 2018 to 2025, nationals of six countries accounted for 65% of all arrivals – Iran (16%), Afghanistan (14%), Iraq (10%), Eritrea (10%), Albania (8%), and Syria (8%).

Despite the overall decrease in the number of people arriving by small boat, the number of Sudanese nationals arriving by small boat in the YE June 2026 (4,191 arrivals) was 11% higher than in the previous year. The number of Somali nationals arriving by small boat also increased in the YE June 2026, with 3,901 arrivals, 76% higher than the previous year.

Eritreans were the most common nationality arriving by small boat in the YE June 2026, with 5,875 arrivals, 2% lower than in the previous year (Figure 4).

The number of Syrians arriving by small boat fell by 67% between 2024 and 2025, a trend the Home Office has attributed to the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

Small boat arrival numbers fluctuate, often due to changes in the weather. Warmer summer months typically see higher numbers due to more favourable crossing conditions. Comparisons of arrivals between months or years should take this seasonality and differences in weather conditions into account and we do not advise making comparisons between short periods or different times of the year.

The number of irregular border crossings into the European Union continued to fall in the first nine months of 2026, with detections down by almost one-third compared with the same period last year. Just over 91 000 crossings were recorded, according to preliminary data collected by Frontex. The decline on nearly all of the major migratory routes reflects sustained cooperation with partner countries and preventive measures in key departure states, which continue to reduce the number of boats setting out towards Europe.

The Central Mediterranean saw the steepest decline, with detections down by 56% compared with the same period last year. The Western Mediterranean was the only major route to record an increase, with detections up by 26%. Detections on the Western African route rose sharply in September, although the route remains down by 45% over the nine months.

Factors external to the UK may have also played a role in the decline in small boat arrivals, however. Most notably, there has been a sharp decline in detected unauthorised border crossings into the EU – arrivals fell 26% in 2025, before declining another 37% in the first half of 2026. This is likely to lead, with a lag, to fewer unauthorised crossings to the UK, since most small boat migrants travel through the EU before reaching beaches in Northern France.

Weather conditions in the Channel are unlikely to have had a significant impact. While conditions can influence the timing of crossings in the short-term as people wait for an appropriate day to travel, they have less of an impact on arrivals over longer periods of time.

This data shows that there have been more favourable crossing conditions so far this year than the same period in almost any year since 2020. Red days this year have already exceeded the 106 recorded in the whole of 2022, which saw a record 45,000 migrants arrive in small boats.

The average number of migrants arriving on red days between January and August has fallen by 38% from 232 to 144 over the past year. This represents a 43% drop from the peak of 251 in 2022.

Data on preventions are operational estimates collected and provided to the UK by French authorities. The data on preventions for migrants includes: individuals who are prevented from departing France, or those who return to France The data on events includes: boats that are prevented from departing France or return to France finds of general maritime equipment arrests of facilitators linked to small boats crossings

It also negotiated a change in French maritime law to allow boats to be intercepted at sea in limited circumstances, though it remains unclear how often this has been implemented in practice.

Around 1,100 people were returned to France between September 2025 and June 2026, equivalent to 4% of those who arrived by small boat during this period.

In the first half of 2026, there was a shift towards more small boats leaving from Belgium, which may suggest that enforcement efforts on the French coastline were making departures less viable. A longstanding trend of smugglers using increasingly larger and more crowded boats accelerated in the summer, with a record 230 people arriving on a single boat in August. One possibility is that this is connected to efforts by the authorities to disrupt supply chains by seizing boats and engines.

The average number of people per small boat has increased each year since 2018, to 65 people per boat in the YE June 2026, compared with 56 people per boat in the YE June 2025 and 7 people per boat in the YE December 2018. The months of September and November in the YE June 2026 saw an average of 71 people per boat, the highest monthly average on record. In contrast, the number of small boats arriving decreased 33% in the YE June 2026 (511 boats) compared to the YE June 2025.

It is difficult to attribute the fall in Albanian small boat arrivals predominantly to the UK-Albania returns deal. Although the deal could be a major driver of continuing low numbers of Albanian small boat arrivals, available data suggest that such arrivals had already fallen sharply prior to the December 2022 announcement of the agreement. While around 9,000 Albanians arrived by small boat in Q3 2022 (1 July to 30 September), this had fallen to around 1,000 in October, 166 in November, and 28 in December 2022.

On 13 December 2022, the UK and Albanian governments signed a Joint Communique to fast-track the removal of Albanian nationals arriving without authorisation. The ability to remove Albanian citizens was not new, however: Albania had long been one of the countries that accepted substantial numbers of removals and deportations from the UK.

Of the 12,658 Albanians detected in 2022, 95% arrived in the six months from May to October inclusive. Fewer Albanians arrived via small boat in the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 (Figure 3, left chart). By contrast, the number of citizens of other countries arriving via small boat increased in Q4 2022 (Figure 3, right-hand chart).

Indeed, most returns of small boat arrivals have been to Albania – 76% of the total (Figure 4). The government prioritised the processing of Albanian asylum applications after arrivals spiked in 2022, and overall returns to the country increased sharply following the signing of a returns agreement the same year.

In 2021 and 2022, almost half of the UK’s initial decisions on Albanian asylum applications were positive. However, this fell to just 3% in 2024 (Figure 5).

1. These statistics are taken from provisional operational data and are subject to change. They may differ from figures published in the final official statistics on Illegal entry routes to the UK, which will have undergone a more thorough quality assurance process.

Data on nationality, age on arrival, and sex comes from the latest information at the time of data extraction for small boat arrivals, recorded detections in the UK and recorded detections at UK ports. This may differ from the information given when the detection was initially recorded.

These statistics do not provide a full picture of how many people entered the UK without permission. It is not advisable to directly compare recorded detections on different methods of entry as different datasets have different levels of coverage.

1. These statistics are taken from provisional operational data and are subject to change. They may differ from figures published in the final official statistics on Illegal entry routes to the UK, which will have undergone a more thorough quality assurance process.

The data refer to detections of illegal border-crossing rather than the number of persons, as the same person may cross the external border several times.

Table 2. Average number of small boat arrivals per red day per year to date (1 Jan - 31 Aug)

6. The data in table SB_01 covers arrivals only, and relates to daily totals. The data in table SB_02 covers both arrivals and preventions, and relates to weekly totals - the data is shown on the last day of the week period, but the activity may have occurred on any day within that week period.

IER_D01: Number of detected arrivals via illegal routes to the UK, 2018 Q1 to 2026 Q2 - dataset