Home Office · Immigration system statistics: asylum claims awaiting a decision dataset
Asylum backlog by time waiting
June 2026 Provisional
40,168people
Asylum backlog by time waiting was 40,168 people at 30 June 2026, down 55.8% (50,644) from 90,812 at 30 June 2025.
▼ 55.8% · −50,644 against June 2025 (same quarter previous year)
Home Office snapshot
June 2026
published 27 August 2026
Asy_D03
row “Application stage=Pending initial decision”
column “Claims”
cell value sum of 1430 rows
The latest year is the largest fall in the published series: down 135,289 from June 2023 to June 2026. Rule: largest year-on-year decrease across the 53 year-on-year changes the series supports.
June 2010 to June 2026
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value
The number of people (main applicants and their dependants) whose asylum claim was awaiting an initial decision at the end of the quarter, split by how long the claim had been waiting. This is a stock, not a flow.
What this doesn’t measure
How long decided claims took, claims awaiting an appeal, or the number of cases (main applicants only).
Important caveat
This is a snapshot count of people (main applicants and dependants) awaiting an initial decision at the end of the quarter, not a total over the quarter. Only claims at the "Pending initial decision" stage are included. Nationality and duration labels are kept exactly as published. Data for 2026 Q1 onwards is provisional.
Revision history
No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.
Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.