How much is uk spending on illegal immigrants

1. Summary of the results

The question “How much is the UK spending on illegal immigrants?” cannot be answered with a single, uncontested figure because multiple cost streams and political claims are being mixed. Government-funded measures to disrupt people‑smuggling and border crime were recently topped up by £100 million for the National Crime Agency and related activities ^{[1] [2]}. Costs linked to asylum accommodation have been repeatedly revised upward: the National Audit Office (NAO) projected asylum accommodation spending of about £15.3 billion over a decade, and also reported that private contractors made £383 million profit on those contracts between 2019–2024 ^[3]. Some political actors frame deportation plans as cost‑saving, but independent analysis cited by fact‑checkers suggests Reform UK’s proposed mass deportations would cost, not save—an estimated £70–90 billion over ten years versus claims of a £42 billion saving, while the Office for Budget Responsibility warned cutting net migration could raise borrowing £13–20 billion within five years ^[4]. Smaller, concrete monthly accommodation figures have also been disputed: a claim that hotel housing cost £1 billion per month was rebutted with a NAO‑based figure of around £108 million per month ^[5]. Local grant uplifts—such as Blackburn with Darwen’s increase to £855,600 for 2025/26—illustrate how taxpayer support is routed through councils for housing and support ^[6]. These pieces together show spending is significant, distributed across enforcement, accommodation, local grants and potential removal operations, and contested between government, auditors and political parties.

2. Missing context and alternative viewpoints

Several important contexts are often omitted in public debates. First, headline figures conflating “illegal immigrants,” “asylum seekers,” and wider migration spending obscure statutory and administrative distinctions: costs for asylum accommodation and processing are not identical to costs of people who have entered and remain illegally, and some announced measures (for example, the “one in, one out” returns deal) initially apply to small numbers and include transport costs borne by the UK ^{[7] [8]}. Second, the NAO’s higher decade projection on accommodation ^[3] reflects rising contract costs and provider profits, but does not capture offsetting long‑term fiscal effects such as taxation, labour market participation, or social service use that independent fiscal institutions like the OBR try to model ^[4]. Third, prevention and enforcement spending—such as the government’s £100m investment in border security—should be seen alongside policy choices: some parties propose large‑scale removals (Reform UK’s plan to deport 600,000 over five years and offer £2 billion in incentives to other countries), which carry their own implementation and diplomatic costs ^[9]. Local government pressures (example grant increases) show costs concentrated in reception areas, which is a different fiscal dynamic than central Home Office spending ^[6]. Each of these angles changes how a single “spend on illegal immigrants” number should be interpreted.

3. Potential misinformation or bias in the original statement

Claims framed to produce a single large monthly or annual cost often serve political narratives and can mislead because they omit nuance and alternative data. For example, the “£1 billion a month” hotel cost headline was fact‑checked down to about £108 million a month using NAO reporting, revealing a tenfold exaggeration risk when raw claims circulate without sourcing ^[5]. Similarly, political messaging that presents deportation plans as net savings overlooks independent estimates that such programmes could increase public borrowing by billions or cost tens of billions to implement—figures that contradict claims of budgetary windfalls ^[4]. Actors promoting tougher removal policies may benefit politically from inflated cost framing because it simplifies complex fiscal trade‑offs into an emotive number; conversely, government spending announcements on enforcement (the £100m package) or small pilot returns deals ^[7] can be used to signal action without resolving accommodation cost drivers identified by auditors ^{[1] [3]}. The available evidence in these sources points to substantial, disputed spending across multiple programmes, and demonstrates that simple, headline figures risk misrepresenting both the scale and the composition of costs.