Small boat knowledge launched in main replace as lady, 8, amongst 2025 casualties
Home Office data shows 41,474 people made the perilous journey across the Channel in 2025, up 13% on the previous year but below the 2022 record of 45,774
More than 41,000 people reached the UK by small boat in 2025, the Home Office confirmed.
Data showed 41,474 people made the perilous journey – up 13% from 36,816 the previous year, but below the 2022 record of 45,774. Small boat crossings have risen considerably since 299 arrivals were recorded in 2018.
It comes after The Mirror revealed that at least 36 people had died trying to reach the UK from France in 2025 – down from 78 in 2024. Among the dead were a mum and daughter named as Kazaq Ezra, 40, and Agdad Hilmi, eight, who were crushed on a small boat in May.
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May 31 saw the largest number of arrivals, with 1,195 people reaching the UK, the data shows. The Government has announced a string of measures aimed at driving down crossings, including sweeping changes to asylum protections and an agreement with France to return migrants on a one-in-one-out basis.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “Most men, women and children taking these journeys have fled oppressive regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan and brutal civil wars in countries like Sudan.
“No one risks their life on a flimsy boat in the Channel except out of desperation to be safe in a country where they have family or community connections. It’s right the government wants to stop channel crossings but plans that will punish people found to be refugees are unfair and not an effective deterrent.”
The Home Office confirmed on Thursday that no one made the journey on New Year’s Eve, continuing a run of no crossings over the festive period. For much of 2025, the number of arrivals was running at the highest level since data on Channel crossings was first published in 2018.
But the pace slowed during the last two months of the year, and there were long periods when no migrants arrived – including a 28-day run from November 15 to December 12. The average number of people per boat rose to 62 – up from 53 in 2024 and 49 in 2023.
In October the UK’s Border Security Commander, Martin Hewitt, said the number of arrivals in 2025 is “frustrating” but that work to stop the smuggling route was “always going to take time”.
The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act, which introduces new criminal offences and allows law enforcement agencies to use counter terror-style powers to crack down on people-smuggling gangs, became law in December.
In November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood also announced plans for a raft of reforms in what she described as “the most significant changes to our asylum system in modern times”. This, she said, would deter people from coming to the UK and make it easier to deport them.
Under new the new measures, people granted asylum will have to wait 20 years to apply to settle permanently. And those granted the protection will have their status reviewed every two-and-a-half years, the Home Secretary announced.
This means tens of thousands could be ordered to leave the UK in the event of regime change in their homeland.
On December 16, border security minister Alex Norris told peers that 193 migrants had been sent back to France and 195 had arrived in the UK under the returns deal so far.
