Britain has lost count of visa overstayers—and the numbers could be staggering
Tab2Mag Exclusive Investigation
The UK government faces an uncomfortable truth: it has no reliable way of knowing how many foreign nationals have overstayed their visas. For five and a half years, no comprehensive data has been collected, leaving a gaping hole in immigration oversight that experts describe as a “shambles.”
Immigration lawyer Harjap Singh Bhangal estimates the figure could reach 400,000 people across Britain. “The Home Office doesn’t have any accurate data because we don’t have exit controls,” Bhangal told reporters. “It’s a shambles. It’s an institution where every wall in the building is cracked.”
How We Got Here
The tracking system that once existed was far from perfect, but it was something. The Home Office previously monitored overstayers by cross-referencing passport numbers from visa records against departure data provided by airlines and travel companies. A match meant someone had left on schedule. No match flagged a potential overstayer.
This method collapsed under the combined weight of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. The complications introduced by these seismic events led officials to conclude they could no longer produce reliable figures using the same approach.
The old system had known flaws. Passport changes during UK stays, data entry errors by airlines, and incorrect number submissions all created false positives. The Home Office acknowledged the statistics likely overestimated overstayer numbers, and the Office for National Statistics labeled them “experimental” rather than official—a designation signaling caution in interpretation.
Still, they provided a baseline. Between April 2016 and March 2020, upwards of 250,000 people were identified as potential overstayers—roughly 63,000 annually. This figure represents 3.5% of the seven million visas that expired during that period, suggesting at least 96.5% compliance.
The Scale of the Problem
To put those numbers in perspective, 250,000 potential overstayers over four years exceeds the 190,000 people recorded arriving in the UK via small boats since 2018—a comparison that underscores the scale of the tracking gap.
The situation has only grown more complex. Between 2020 and June 2025, the Home Office issued over 13 million visas, including a record-breaking 3.4 million in 2023 alone. Without knowing how many of these visas have expired, estimating current overstayer numbers becomes nearly impossible.
It’s been four and a half years since freedom of movement for EU citizens ended, and more than three and a half years since pandemic travel restrictions lifted. Yet the government has not revealed what a replacement tracking system might look like—or when one might be implemented.
What Happens Next?
The absence of data creates more than just statistical uncertainty. It undermines immigration enforcement, complicates policy discussions, and leaves the public without clear information about a contentious issue.
As visa issuance reaches record levels and political pressure on immigration intensifies, the government’s inability to track who stays and who leaves represents a fundamental failure of administrative oversight. Until a new system emerges, Britain will continue operating blind on one of its most politically sensitive topics.
The Home Office has not provided a timeline for when accurate tracking might resume.
