Migrant Households Receiving Record Amount of Direct Welfare Payments in Britain

The British taxpayer is handing out a record £11.9 billion in direct welfare payments to households with at least one migrant, according to data from the Department for Work and Pensions.

Analysis of DWP figures by the Centre for Migration Control found that around one in six (15.6 per cent) of Universal Credit welfare payments went to households with at least one migrant.

This resulted in a record £11.9 billion ($15.9bn) in Universal Credit payments being directed to households with at least one migrant in 2025, according to the Daily Telegraph.

This represented more than a 25 per cent increase from 2024, when £9.5 billion ($12.7bn) was spent on households with a migrant, and more than 58 per cent more than in 2023, when £7.5 billion ($10bn) was spent.

The Universal Credit system coalesced multiple different welfare systems in 2013 into one monthly payment intended to subsidise unemployed people or those on low incomes. The data revealed that 65 per cent of payments, £7.7 billion ($10.3bn), went to unemployed claimants.

The actual cost of waves of mass migration imposed on the country — against the will of the voting public — is much higher in reality, with Universal Credit only representing one avenue through which tax money is directed to foreigners, including through the education or healthcare systems.

The numbers also do not account for migrants who were awarded citizenship and take advantage of the welfare system, or indeed the children of migrants. The data set also excludes the billions spent on housing and feeding mostly illegal migrants who claim asylum and are put up at taxpayer expense in hotels and other accommodations throughout the country.

The DWP figures did show that taxpayer handouts were evenly split between households with migrants from and outside the European Economic Area. Under the current system, migrants are entitled to apply for Universal Credit if they have been given refugee status, were afforded post-Brexit EU settled status, or have been granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

The left-wing Labour Party government is currently said to be debating proposals from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to extend the waiting time before migrants can apply for ILR from five to ten years, and 15 years for foreign care workers.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has said that it would abolish indefinite leave to remain altogether and replace it with an American-style five year renewable work visa system.

Reform has also vowed to bar all foreign nationals from receiving Universal Credit welfare payments, including EU migrants who were afforded access as a part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement with Brussels.

The party has estimated that by removing foreigners from the Universal Credit rolls would save taxpayers £21 billion ($28.5bn) a year by 2029.

Whether or not the government suspends or delays indefinite leave to remain could prove critical to the longterm economic future of the UK, with analysis from Reform finding that the so-called Boriswave migrants who arrived between 2020 and 2024 following Brexit under the liberated laws set in place by then-PM Boris Johnson could cost the state £622.5 billion by the end of their lives if they are given permanent residency.