The UK’s government has confirmed that a total of 2,836,490 visas were granted last year, or 11 per cent fewer than in 2019.
The majority of the visas granted by authorities in the UK were for visit and study purposes, VisaGuide.World reports.
“Of the visas granted in the latest 12 months, 49 per cent were to visit, 22 per cent were under the study routes, 15 per cent were under the work routes, 3 per cent were for family reasons, and 11 per cent for other reasons (including grants of leave on the Ukraine Schemes and British National (Overseas)(BN(O) route),” the statement reads.
In addition, the number of applications for the (BN(O) route stood at 160,700 in the almost two years since it was introduced.
A total of 104.9 million passenger arrivals were recorded in the United Kingdom last year, based on government data.
The recent figures account for nearly two-thirds of the total number of arrivals registered in 2019, before the spread of COVID-19 and more than three times as many as in 2021, when COVID-related restrictions were kept in place.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK authorities also received a large number of visa applications from Ukrainians. Last year, a total of 248,107 applications were filed by Ukrainian nationals.
Authorities in the United Kingdom also received a large number of requests for work visas.
“There were 267,670 grants to main applicants on work visas, almost twice as many (95 per cent more) than in 2019 due to increases in both long-term sponsored work visas and ‘Temporary Worker’ visas,” the statement notes.
The number of sponsored study visas last year stood at 485,758 or 81 per cent more compared to 2019 figures.
Authorities in the United Kingdom granted a total of 48,107 family-related visas, 14 per cent fewer compared to the figures registered before the spread of the Coronavirus and its new variants.
In addition, the UK government offered protection to a total of 23,841 people. These figures were 15 per cent higher compared to 2019 statistics.
The same noted that authorities in the United Kingdom registered a total of 74,751 asylum applications or more than twice the figures registered before the spread of the coronavirus.
“This is higher than at the peak of the European Migration crisis (36,546 in the year ending June 2016) and is the highest number of applications for almost 2 decades (since 2003),” the statement of the UK’s government reads.
Furthermore, last year, there were recorded 18,699 initial decisions made on asylum requests. Despite the fact that the number of decisions surged by 29 per cent last year, it still remained 10 per cent below 2019 figures.
The post Almost 3 Million Visas Granted Last Year by UK Authorities appeared first on VisaGuide.World.
