UK Spends Billions Housing Migrants While 582000 Workers Cover the Bill with Their Taxes

The UK is shelling out a jaw-dropping £4.7 billion a year to house and support migrants—and it’s all being paid for with the full income tax of 582,000 working people. That number? It’s the equivalent of every single person living in Manchester covering the cost.

Statistics expert Jamie Jenkins, who crunched the numbers, didn’t hold back. “This isn’t just unsustainable. It’s outrageous,” he said. Jenkins, a former Office for National Statistics analyst, explained that the government is borrowing billions each year while also spending massive amounts on housing people who’ve just arrived in the country. Meanwhile, British workers are taxed to pay for it all. The staggering figures were first reported by The Sun.

“A government that borrows billions each year, can’t control borders, and taxes its citizens to pay for hotel rooms and housing for people who’ve just arrived is not working for the British public,” he said. “It’s time for a system that protects the people who pay in. That rewards contribution. That puts citizens first.”

According to the latest figures, around 32,345 asylum seekers are currently being housed in roughly 210 hotels across the country. And the cost of doing that is skyrocketing. Back in 2020, it cost about £17,000 a year to house each asylum seeker. Today, it’s £41,000 per person, per year.

To put that in perspective, the average UK salary is £38,224. The typical worker pays around £8,081 in income tax and National Insurance. That means it takes the full tax contribution of over half a million people just to cover the annual cost of housing migrants. It’s a number that overshadows the populations of major UK cities like Nottingham, Sheffield, and Leeds.

It’s also more than the combined tax contributions of every mechanic and HGV driver in the country.

The £4.7 billion spent in 2023–2024 is made up of £3.1 billion on accommodation, with the rest going toward grants for local councils, operations of sites like the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset, and a £49-a-week subsistence allowance for migrants.

That figure is up from £3.6 billion spent the previous year. So not only is the situation expensive—it’s getting more costly by the year.

Meanwhile, illegal migrant crossings are on the rise. So far in 2025, nearly 15,000 people have made their way across the Channel to Dover—a 42 percent increase from the same time last year.

This comes despite the UK handing over £480 million in taxpayer money to French authorities to help stop the crossings. But the numbers suggest those efforts are falling short.

As the debate over immigration and asylum policy heats up, numbers like these are likely to become even more central to the political conversation—especially for taxpayers wondering exactly where their money is going.

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