Fact check: What is the average cost of housing an asylum seeker in a hotel?

1. What claim people are making — and what the sources actually say, not say

Media pieces and investigative reports repeatedly raise the claim that housing asylum seekers in hotels is very expensive, sometimes implying a clear per-person nightly rate. None of the provided reports, however, publishes a validated national per-person nightly average. Instead, they present aggregate Home Office spending (for example, £2.1 billion on hotels in one 12‑month period) and specific contract totals for hotel block bookings (for instance, roughly £100 million over four years for two hotels totaling 1,080 rooms), which can be used to estimate but not definitively calculate an average cost per asylum seeker per night because ancillary costs and occupancy dynamics are unreported ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

2. How to infer a per-room or per-person figure from published contract totals

When analysts divide block-booking totals by room-nights implied by contract length and room counts, simple arithmetic produces indicative figures but rests on assumptions the sources do not verify: guaranteed occupancy, inclusion or exclusion of catering, security, management fees and transport. The cited £100 million four-year block booking for 1,080 rooms implies an annual per-room cost roughly in the low thousands, but the reporting explicitly cautions that this figure does not account for additional service costs nor whether payment continues for empty rooms — a crucial variable that increases apparent per‑person public spending ^[2].

3. Aggregate spending gives scale but not per-person clarity

Home Office-linked figures reported in September 2025 show £2.1 billion spent on asylum hotels between April 2024 and March 2025, equating to about £5.77 million per day on hotel accommodation nationwide; this sum establishes the scale of taxpayer exposure but cannot be translated into a single per-person nightly rate without official bed‑night counts and cost breakdowns. Journalists and official commentators have used these aggregates to highlight policy cost escalation — from an expected decade bill of £4.5 billion to a reported £15.3 billion — yet such comparisons remain high-level and omit per-bed-service compositions ^{[1] [2]}.

4. International and alternative data points show variability, not a universal rate

Comparative reporting from Ireland demonstrates that commercially provided IPAS beds averaged €71 per person per night, down from €84, illustrating that country-level procurement practices and market structures materially affect prices. That Irish figure offers a useful comparator but cannot be mapped directly to the UK context because procurement terms, room standards, included services, and occupancy guarantees differ. The UK reporting does not publish a standard per‑night procurement price for hotel rooms across all contracts ^[3].

5. Why published figures do not equal true “cost per asylum seeker”

Every attempt to state an average per-person hotel cost must confront missing data: whether contracts cover empty-room payments, whether figures include on-site support, transport and security, and whether multiple occupants share rooms. The cited articles emphasize policy factors — the government’s pledge to end hotel use by 2029 and the political sensitivity of hotel placements — which affect contract terms and thus costs. Consequently, estimates derived from block-booking totals or aggregate spend are directionally informative but not definitive without full contract line items and occupancy data ^{[4] [5] [2]}.

6. Where reporting diverges and possible agendas to note

Some outlets emphasize aggregate headline costs and potential taxpayer waste to advance calls for policy reform; others foreground humanitarian and living‑condition concerns inside hotels, underscoring pressures to end hotel use. Both angles are present across the pieces: one article stresses the lived experience in hotels and the government pledge to end them, while another underscores escalating fiscal outturns and procurement distortions. These differing emphases suggest editorial agendas—either fiscal accountability or humanitarian focus—shaping which figures and implications are highlighted ^{[4] [1]}.

7. What would be needed to produce a robust average per asylum seeker

To move from implication to authoritative average, officials or investigators must publish bed-night counts, detailed contract rates (per-night, per-room), occupancy rules, and line-itemed ancillary costs (food, security, transport, management fees). Until such granular disclosures are provided, the public record supports only range-based inferences using block‑booking totals and aggregate spend, not a single validated per‑person hotel-night average. Current reporting in September 2025 provides necessary context and magnitude but stops short of that granular transparency ^{[2] [1]}.

8. Bottom line for readers seeking a single figure

There is no verified single average cost of housing an asylum seeker in a hotel in the available reporting; only aggregate spends and specific contract totals exist that permit approximate calculations under unspecified assumptions. Readers seeking a definitive per‑person rate should look for or request detailed Home Office disclosures of bed‑nights and contract line items; until then, published figures serve to show scale and policy trade‑offs but cannot be converted into an authoritative average without caveats ^{[1] [2]}.