Last reviewed: 7 October 2026
THE BREXIT FILES — Claim. Evidence. Outcome.
“Take back control” became the defining slogan of the 2016 Brexit campaign.
Few issues gave that slogan more force than immigration.
Supporters of leaving the European Union argued that Britain could not fully control immigration while EU free movement continued. Leaving, they said, would allow the UK to decide who could come to live and work here.
That part of the argument was substantially correct.
Brexit ended free movement between the UK and the European Union. From 1 January 2021, most EU citizens wanting to move to Britain became subject to UK immigration rules, just as most non-EU citizens already were.
But something then happened that many voters did not expect.
Instead of falling, overall net migration rose to the highest level on record.
It peaked at an estimated 944,000 in the year ending March 2023.
Since then, it has fallen dramatically. The Office for National Statistics estimates net migration at 171,000 in the year ending December 2025.
So did Brexit deliver control of immigration?
The answer depends on what we mean by control.
Britain gained substantially more legal and political control over immigration policy.
But control over the rules is not the same thing as guaranteeing lower immigration.
The post-Brexit numbers were ultimately shaped by choices made by British governments.
That distinction is the key to understanding what actually happened.
What Was Being Promised With Brexit immigration 2016?
During the referendum campaign, Vote Leave repeatedly argued that leaving the EU would allow Britain to control immigration.
The basic argument was straightforward.
EU free movement meant that citizens of EU countries generally had the right to live and work in the UK without first obtaining a work visa under the domestic immigration system.
As long as Britain remained subject to free movement rules, the UK government could not simply impose its normal work-visa criteria on EU citizens.
That meant the government could not directly determine the number of EU citizens who chose to move to Britain.
This was an important limitation on UK immigration policy.
But the language of “control our borders” could also create confusion.
Britain was not part of the Schengen passport-free area.
UK border officers already checked passports at British ports and airports.
The issue was therefore not whether Britain possessed a physical border or could inspect travellers.
The central issue was the right of EU citizens to move to Britain under free movement law.
Full Fact made this distinction during the referendum campaign: the UK retained border checks, but EU membership limited the government’s ability to control overall immigration from other EU countries.
Full Fact — EU facts behind the claims: immigration
Full Fact — What does leaving the EU mean for border controls?
Did Brexit End Free Movement?
Yes.
The Brexit transition period ended on 31 December 2020.
From 1 January 2021, free movement rules ceased to apply to most new EU citizens moving to the UK.
The government introduced a new immigration system under which both EU and non-EU citizens generally had to qualify under UK rules for work, study or other long-term routes.
There were important exceptions and protections.
EU citizens already living in Britain before the end of the transition period could protect their residence rights through the EU Settlement Scheme, while the Withdrawal Agreement protected eligible UK citizens already resident in EU countries.
But for new migration, the system had fundamentally changed.
That was a genuine consequence of Brexit.
House of Commons Library — End of the Brexit transition period
So Did Britain “Take Back Control”?
In the narrow constitutional and policy sense, yes.
After free movement ended, Parliament and the UK government had far greater discretion over the conditions under which EU citizens could move to Britain.
The UK could decide:
- which jobs qualified for work visas;
- what salary thresholds applied;
- whether overseas care workers could be recruited;
- whether students could bring dependants;
- how long graduates could remain after studying;
- which humanitarian routes should be opened;
- and how the rules should differ over time.
That is substantially more control over immigration policy than Britain possessed while participating in EU free movement.
But an important distinction emerges here.
Control does not automatically mean reduction.
A government with the power to restrict migration also has the power to permit more migration.
And after Brexit, British governments made a number of decisions that increased opportunities for people from outside the EU to come to the UK.
What Happened to EU Migration?
EU migration fell sharply.
Before Brexit, EU citizens made up a major share of people moving to Britain.
The Migration Observatory estimates that EU net migration peaked at around 320,000 in the year ending June 2016, which included the referendum.
After free movement ended, the pattern changed dramatically.
EU net migration eventually became negative—meaning more EU citizens left the UK than arrived.
According to the Office for National Statistics, net migration of EU+ nationals was minus 42,000 in the year ending December 2025.
So if the objective was to reduce migration under EU free movement, the change was substantial.
Office for National Statistics — Long-term international migration, year ending December 2025
Migration Observatory — Net migration to the UK
Then Why Did Overall Migration Rise So Much?
Because the composition of immigration changed.
EU migration fell, but non-EU migration increased dramatically.
The new post-Brexit system was more restrictive for many EU citizens than free movement had been.
At the same time, however, it opened or expanded important routes for non-EU migration.
Several developments came together.
International students
Britain encouraged growth in international student recruitment.
The government also reintroduced a post-study Graduate route, allowing eligible international graduates to remain in Britain temporarily after completing their studies.
Universities increasingly recruited overseas students, partly because international fees became financially important to the sector.
Student migration and, for a period, student dependants became major contributors to immigration.
Health and social care workers
Britain faced serious staffing shortages in health and social care.
Care workers became eligible for the Health and Care Worker visa in 2022.
Recruitment increased rapidly.
Large numbers of accompanying dependants also came through these routes before the rules were later tightened.
Ukraine and Hong Kong
The government created major humanitarian and special visa routes.
These included schemes for people fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the British National (Overseas) route for eligible people from Hong Kong.
These were deliberate policy responses to exceptional circumstances and were not part of the original system designed simply to replace EU free movement.
Dependants
The number of partners and children accompanying some workers and students also increased substantially during the post-Brexit migration surge.
Taken together, these factors changed the geography of immigration.
Britain moved from a system in which EU citizens represented a large proportion of migration to one increasingly dominated by people from outside the EU.
The Migration Observatory concluded that the post-Brexit rise reflected a combination of policy liberalisation, student recruitment, health and care demand and special humanitarian routes.
Migration Observatory — Why has non-EU migration to the UK risen?
How High Did Net Migration Go?
Very high.
The latest ONS series estimates that net migration peaked at approximately:
944,000 in the year ending March 2023.
That means immigration exceeded emigration by almost one million people over that twelve-month period.
This was far above levels seen during the years leading up to the referendum.
The increase was overwhelmingly driven by non-EU migration.
That produced an apparent paradox:
Britain had gained more control over immigration policy, yet net migration was much higher than it had been under EU membership.
But there is no real contradiction.
The government now controlled more of the system.
It simply chose — through a combination of deliberate policy decisions and responses to extraordinary events — to operate rules that permitted high levels of non-EU immigration.
House of Commons Library — Migration statistics
Did Brexit Cause the Record Migration Levels?
Not by itself.
It would be too simplistic to say that Brexit directly caused every part of the post-2021 migration surge.
Some of the largest factors were separate events or policy choices.
The Ukraine schemes followed Russia’s invasion.
The Hong Kong BNO route resulted from the UK government’s response to political changes in Hong Kong.
The surge in international students reflected government policy, university recruitment and the reopening of international travel after the Covid pandemic.
Health and care recruitment responded partly to serious labour shortages.
However, Brexit changed the immigration system that shaped these decisions.
The post-Brexit system reduced migration opportunities for many EU citizens while creating a more globally oriented work-visa system.
So Brexit changed who came, even though it did not automatically determine how many came.
What Happened After the Peak?
The government tightened the rules.
During 2024, the Conservative government introduced several measures intended to reduce legal migration.
These included:
- preventing most international students from bringing dependants;
- preventing care workers from bringing dependants;
- increasing the salary threshold for many Skilled Worker visas;
- tightening sponsorship requirements in the care sector.
Further changes followed.
By 2025, the Health and Care route had been closed to new overseas recruitment of care workers, and eligibility for some middle-skilled occupations was restricted.
The effects were substantial.
The ONS estimates that long-term net migration fell from its 2023 peak of 944,000 to 171,000 in the year ending December 2025.
Long-term immigration fell to approximately 813,000, while emigration was approximately 642,000.
The ONS says the reduction in work-related non-EU immigration was the main reason for the latest fall, alongside earlier declines in some study and dependant routes and rising emigration by people who had arrived in previous years.
Office for National Statistics — Long-term international migration, year ending December 2025
What Do the Latest Numbers Tell Us?
The year ending December 2025 gives us a useful snapshot.
The ONS provisionally estimates:
- 813,000 people immigrated long term
- 642,000 emigrated
- Net migration was 171,000
Among non-EU+ nationals, net migration remained positive at around 350,000.
EU+ net migration was minus 42,000.
British national net migration was also negative, at approximately minus 136,000.
This means the overall figure of 171,000 masks several very different migration flows.
It also demonstrates why migration statistics need careful interpretation.
People often discuss “immigration” and “net migration” as though they mean the same thing.
They do not.
Immigration measures people arriving.
Net migration subtracts people leaving.
A country can therefore have substantial immigration while recording a much lower net migration figure if emigration is also high.
The ONS also classifies the latest estimates as official statistics in development, and they may be revised as methods and data improve.
Was Immigration Lower Because of Brexit?
For EU citizens, migration was clearly much lower after free movement ended.
For overall migration, the picture is much less simple.
Net migration initially became dramatically higher after Brexit before falling again.
The post-Brexit system gave the government greater ability to change the rules, and the sharp fall after 2023 demonstrates that those rules can have a major effect.
But the experience since 2021 also shows that leaving the EU was never, by itself, a mechanism that guaranteed low immigration.
Brexit transferred more immigration-policy power to Westminster.
What Westminster did with that power was a separate political decision.
What “Control” Did Britain Already Have?
This part of the debate is often lost.
Before Brexit, Britain already controlled immigration from countries outside the EU.
It also remained outside the Schengen border-free area, retained passport checks and could refuse entry in various circumstances.
It did not have the same discretion over EU citizens exercising free movement rights.
So statements claiming Britain had “no control over its borders” while in the EU went too far.
Statements claiming EU membership placed no meaningful limits on British immigration policy also went too far.
The truth sat between them.
Britain controlled important parts of its border and immigration system before Brexit.
Brexit expanded that control significantly by ending free movement.
What About British Citizens?
Free movement was reciprocal.
Ending it did not only change the rights of EU citizens wanting to move to Britain.
It also changed the rights of British citizens wanting to move to the European Union.
British citizens no longer have an automatic EU-law right to live and work across EU member states.
For short visits to most of the Schengen area, UK citizens can generally stay for up to 90 days in any rolling 180-day period without a visa.
Longer stays, employment and residence are normally subject to the rules of the individual EU country concerned.
People whose rights were protected under the Withdrawal Agreement are in a different position.
That reciprocal loss of free movement is part of the overall outcome of the decision to regain national control over immigration policy.
House of Commons Library — After Brexit: Visiting, working and living in the EU
Did Voters Get What They Were Promised?
There are two different questions hiding inside that sentence.
If the promise was:
“Britain will be able to set its own immigration rules for EU citizens,”
then broadly, yes.
Brexit delivered that.
If the promise was understood as:
“Brexit will automatically produce much lower overall immigration,”
then no.