Across Europe, migration has steered most political debates and moved thousands in protest. As 2026 begins, statistics suggest restrictive measures have deterred many departures, with a general decrease in irregular crossings and net migration.
However, this is not true for all parts of the region: the UK, contrary to the EU, experienced an increase of about 5,000 arrivals compared to 2024’s figures, which is the highest since 2022.
Europe: Irregular Crossings Down by a Quarter in First 11 Months
Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, worked across the EU’s external border with more than 3500 officers in member states. Their preliminary data suggests a 25% decrease in irregular crossings in the first 11 months of 2025, to a little over 166,900.
📢 Situation at EU external borders: First 11 months of 2025
📊 Irregular border crossings fall by 25%
📉 Western African and Western Balkan routes continue with strong declines
🚨 Central Mediterranean route accounts for nearly 40% of all irregular entries
📈 Western… pic.twitter.com/ibQXUMK8fL— Frontex (@Frontex) December 12, 2025
The decline is visible across most routes. The most significant is at the Western African route, where the 60% decrease suggests the Canary Islands are no longer a preferred stopover.
The Western Balkan route through Croatia and Hungary continues to decline. In 2024, this decline was sharper with 79%, but this year’s decrease is also significant, almost halving previous numbers. The Eastern Mediterranean also went down, by more than last year’s 18% increase.
The Eastern Land border also reported a significant decrease after last year’s 200% increase, where most people were reported to be Ukrainian men of fighting age. The most significant nationality remains Ukrainian, followed by Somali.
The Central Mediterranean is now the main route for irregular crossings, largely unchanged from last year. Libya remains a major departure point, responsible for more than 90% of all arrivals on the route, but there are departures from Tunisia and Algeria as well.
The route is also frequented by significant numbers of Bangladeshi migrants who are flown into Libya, where they receive a visa, but continue irregular paths across the sea. Mark Micallef, head of the North Africa and Sahel Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, highlighted to the Financial Times that such instances of “hybrid smuggling” are on the rise.
The Western Mediterranean also increased; most arrivals (70%) come from Algeria. Algerians and Somalis are the main nationalities frequenting this route.
The overall decrease can be attributed to both the EU and national governments’ restrictive measures deterring many. For example, Germany, a major destination within the EU, reported that its asylum applications halved in 2025 to 113,236 from last year’s 229,751.
Whether this is due to their national measures only, as the German Interior Ministry suggests, is questionable: neighbouring Italy also introduced restrictive measures, which likely contributed. There is also the fact that previous statistics also showed a downward tendency, as there were 329,120 asylum requests filed in 2023.
While the decrease last year is commendable, experts question whether the bloc can keep up this tendency in the coming year.
UK: Highest Number since 2022
While the EU’s record of exits towards the Channel remained largely the same, the UK recorded a major increase in small boat arrivals from 36,816 last year to 41,472 in all of 2025.
This is the second-largest annual number since records began in 2018. The only year surpassing this was 2022, when 45,755 arrivals were reported.
Despite the ‘One in One Out’ deal with France and the introduction of reforms to the asylum and visa systems, the numbers outraged opposition figures. A Home Office spokesperson said the number was “shameful and the British people deserve better,” according to the Guardian.
Net migration, on the other hand, is dropping in the UK: the Office for National Statistics’ figures show that in the year to June 2025, net migration (estimated at 204,000) was the lowest annual figure since 2021.
According to Home Office data compiled by The Telegraph, the government is on course to reduce net migration to below 200,000 this year, the first instance since the year ending December 2005, when net migration was 185,000.
This suggests that while visa overhauls and a generally unwelcoming rhetoric managed to keep legal migrants away, the UK continues to struggle with irregular arrivals, with its asylum overhaul still in progress.
There is also the contributing factor of British nationals emigrating in larger numbers: in the year ending June 2024, the ONS’s provisional estimates put emigration at 650,000. For the same period ending June 2025, this increased to 693,000.
Some demography experts argue the tendency will cause issues for the British economy: with the decreasing migration and birth rate, increasing emigration, and deaths outnumbering births, the British economy will struggle to maintain the workforce necessary for its maintenance.
The think tank Resolution Foundation warned that this year is a turning point; deaths are projected to outnumber births by even greater margins. Combined with decreasing migration, the population will start to shrink. By the 2040s, the gap between deaths and births could be as high as 100,000 annually.
While the current Labour government continues to aim for the reduction of migration levels to stop the rise of far-right Reform UK, the long term may prove a greater problem for the Isles if they continue to ignore such statistics.
“This may shift the conversation on migration away from arguments over whether the country is already ‘full’ and onto whether we want to address population decline. However, migration policy, and how much it should prioritise economic growth over other considerations, is likely to remain politically charged,” Greg Thwaites, co-author of the think tank’s report called New Year Outlook 2026, told The Independent in a statement.
A Debate in Escalation
While numbers are either stopping or going down, the general unrest around migration has not eased. Though advocacy groups and international organizations warn of a deteriorating humanitarian issue, the rise of populist and far-right parties across destination countries suggests measures will get more restrictive in the new year.
Regardless, across Europe, the migration debate is expected to remain in the centre of political debate and elections.
