British households containing at least one foreign national received £11.9 billion in Universal Credit during 2025, up more than 25% from the previous year as immigration and welfare eligibility remain central issues in Britain’s political debate.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Universal Credit payments to British households containing at least one foreign national reached a record £11.9 billion, or approximately $15.9 billion, in 2025, according to Department for Work and Pensions data obtained through freedom of information laws.
The total represented a sharp increase over the previous two years. Payments to those households stood at £9.5 billion, or about $12.7 billion, in 2024 and £7.5 billion, or approximately $10 billion, in 2023. The increase from 2024 to 2025 was roughly 25%, while the two-year increase was approximately 59%.
An analysis by the Centre for Migration Control found that households with at least one foreign national accounted for 15.6% of Universal Credit payments during the latest period, according to reporting by The Telegraph. The underlying figures were supplied by the DWP.
Of the £11.9 billion total, approximately £7.7 billion, or 65%, was associated with claimants categorized as not working. The payments were approximately evenly divided between households containing a foreign national from within the European Economic Area and those containing a foreign national from outside the EEA.
The figures measure households containing at least one foreign national rather than payments made exclusively to foreign nationals. A household can contain people with different nationalities or immigration statuses, and the figures therefore should not be interpreted as showing that the entire £11.9 billion was paid directly to migrants themselves.
Universal Credit is Britain’s primary means-tested benefit for working-age people who are unemployed, on low incomes or unable to work under qualifying circumstances. The system was introduced beginning in 2013 to replace several separate benefits with a consolidated payment. Current eligibility rules require applicants to meet income, savings, residency and immigration-status requirements.
Foreign nationals do not automatically qualify for Universal Credit simply because they live in Britain. Eligibility can depend on immigration status and whether a person has recourse to public funds.
Among those who can qualify are people with refugee status, individuals holding indefinite leave to remain and some EU, EEA and Swiss nationals with rights under the EU Settlement Scheme. People granted settled status can access public funds such as benefits if they otherwise satisfy the relevant eligibility requirements.
The £11.9 billion figure does not represent the total fiscal impact of immigration in Britain. It covers Universal Credit received by households containing at least one foreign national and does not incorporate separate government spending on services such as health care, education or the asylum system.
It also does not identify naturalized British citizens as foreign nationals once they have acquired British citizenship. Consequently, the data cannot by itself provide a comprehensive accounting of either the total public cost or total tax contribution associated with Britain’s migrant population.
Separate government expenditures include accommodation and support for asylum seekers who are prohibited or restricted from supporting themselves while their claims are processed. Those expenditures are administered outside Universal Credit and therefore are not included in the £11.9 billion figure.
The new welfare data have emerged while Britain’s Labour government considers significant changes to the process through which migrants can obtain permanent settlement.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has proposed replacing the standard five-year route to indefinite leave to remain for many migrants with a baseline period of 10 years. Under proposals published for consultation, some workers in occupations below degree level, including many social care workers, could face a 15-year baseline before becoming eligible for settlement.
Indefinite leave to remain, commonly known as ILR, gives a qualifying person the right to live, work and study permanently in Britain and allows access to benefits when other eligibility requirements are satisfied. Under existing rules, many work-visa holders can apply after five years, although qualifying periods differ depending on the immigration route.
The government’s proposed “earned settlement” system would make length of residence only one part of the process. Officials have also proposed considering employment, National Insurance contributions, English-language ability, criminal history, community contribution and benefit use when determining how quickly someone can qualify for permanent settlement.
The proposals remain politically contested and have not all taken final effect. The government received roughly 200,000 responses to its consultation and has been considering how the rules would apply to migrants already living in Britain.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has proposed going considerably further.
The party has said it would end access to most noncontributory welfare benefits for foreign nationals, including Universal Credit, and would apply that policy to EU nationals holding settled status. Such a change would require Britain to renegotiate provisions of its post-Brexit agreement with the European Union.
Reform has estimated that restricting welfare eligibility in this manner would save approximately £21 billion, or about $28.5 billion, annually by 2029. That figure is the party’s projection rather than an independently established saving and would depend on the details of any legislation, behavioral changes and agreements with the European Union.
The party has separately proposed abolishing indefinite leave to remain and replacing permanent settlement for many foreign workers with renewable five-year visas.
Reform has also produced an analysis of the long-term fiscal impact of the surge in immigration that followed Brexit, sometimes referred to by the party as the “Boriswave” because much of it occurred under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and subsequent Conservative governments.
That analysis estimated that migrants arriving between 2020 and 2024 who ultimately receive permanent residency could generate a lifetime net fiscal cost of £622.5 billion. The figure is a Reform UK estimate based on assumptions about future employment, earnings, taxes, benefit use and public-service consumption over several decades, rather than a recorded government expenditure.
Government analysis has separately examined the potential long-term fiscal effects of specific immigration categories, including care workers and their adult dependents. The Home Office has said fiscal outcomes vary substantially among migrant groups depending on factors such as age, employment, income and use of public services.
The latest Universal Credit figures nevertheless document a substantial increase in one specific category of welfare spending: payments to households containing at least one foreign national.
At £11.9 billion in 2025, those households accounted for approximately one in every six pounds of Universal Credit identified in the Centre for Migration Control’s analysis, compared with £7.5 billion two years earlier.
The figures are likely to remain part of Britain’s wider debate over how immigration status, permanent residency and access to public benefits should be linked as the government considers changes to settlement rules and Reform UK presses for substantially tighter restrictions on welfare eligibility.
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