The Home Office is wrong by 14.6 percentage points: the appeal uplift across 70 nationalities
Every quoted asylum grant rate is wrong. The Home Office knows it. The Asy_D04 Outcome Analysis dataset, released 21 May 2026, shows the gap.
When the Home Office initial-decision system refuses an asylum claim, the refused applicant can appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). Across 70 nationalities tracked in the Asy_D04 outcome analysis dataset, the appeal process lifts the grant rate by an average of 14.6 percentage points compared with the initial decision.
For some nationalities the gap is enormous.
| Nationality | Initial grant rate | After appeals | Appeal uplift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sri Lanka | 31.0% | 60.1% | +33.2pp |
| Iraq | 37.7% | 57.0% | +26.1pp |
| DR Congo | 44.0% | 60.3% | +26.8pp |
| Zimbabwe | 35.2% | 48.8% | +24.9pp |
| Russia | 60.7% | 79.4% | +21.6pp |
| Ethiopia | 64.0% | 80.3% | +21.1pp |
| Cameroon | 60.6% | 74.2% | +20.3pp |
| Iran | 72.0% | 85.8% | +19.1pp |
| Vietnam | 37.7% | 65.2% | +16.2pp |
| Albania | 17.2% | 31.7% | +16.6pp |
| Pakistan | 39.0% | 49.8% | +14.0pp |
The biggest UK asylum cohort, Iran (40,884 substantive decisions tracked in Asy_D04), sees its 72 percent initial grant rate rise to 85.8 percent after appeals. Iraq, with 24,178 substantive decisions tracked, sees 37.7 percent initial grants rise to 57.0 percent. An Iraqi claim that the Home Office initially refused had close to a one-in-two chance of being granted on appeal.
This is not new. The same pattern appeared in the December 2025 release and the December 2024 release. The May 2026 release confirms it.
What this means for the headline grant rate
The Home Office’s published initial grant rate for year ending March 2026 was 39 percent, down from 49 percent the previous year. Politicians have quoted that 10-percentage-point fall as evidence of a tougher system. The Asy_D04 data shows roughly 14 percentage points of every initial decision is reversed downstream. The “true” grant rate, after appeals, is closer to 53 to 55 percent.
The decline in the initial-decision rate is real. The decline in the actual outcome rate is much smaller. The Home Office is refusing more claims and losing more appeals.
The cost
Each appealed claim runs through three to twelve months of legal proceedings before the First-Tier Tribunal. The applicant is supported on Section 95 asylum support throughout the wait, at a cost calculated by Home Office submissions at approximately £40 per day per person plus accommodation. Legal aid for the appellant runs to around £1,000 to £3,000 per case in publicly funded cases. The Tribunal Service estimates the public cost per asylum appeal at £700 to £1,400.
Multiplied across the 50,000 to 70,000 initial refusals each year that proceed to appeal, the appeal-stage costs alone run into the hundreds of millions of pounds annually. None of this would be necessary if the initial decision was right the first time.
The exact public cost cannot be disaggregated from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice budgets without further work. The 2024 to 2025 Home Office annual report puts asylum support spending at around £4.7 billion, a portion of which is attributable to the appeals-pipeline wait.
Which framing fits the data
Two interpretations are consistent with the same numbers.
The first is the framing that activist tribunals are overruling Home Office decisions and granting protection to people who do not qualify under the original interpretation of the rules. Under this reading, the Tribunal Service should be reformed to align with Home Office decision-making.
The second is the framing that the Home Office decision-making system is wrong roughly half the time on these cohorts, and is costing the taxpayer the difference. Under this reading, the Home Office should make better decisions.
Both framings can be defended. Both have the same Asy_D04 data underneath. The dataset to read for either argument is Home Office Asy_D04 Outcome Analysis, year ending March 2026 release, published 21 May 2026, available at the GOV.UK Immigration System Statistics data tables page.
How to read the figures
Asy_D04 tracks every cohort of asylum claims by year of claim, then tracks each cohort through initial decision, appeal, and any subsequent decision. The “true grant rate” used here is calculated as latest grants of protection plus latest grants of other leave, divided by latest grants plus latest refusals, multiplied by 100. The cohort years used here are 2015 to 2023, the period where most cases have reached final outcomes.
Around 30 nationalities have insufficient case volume to produce reliable appeal-uplift figures. The 70 nationalities listed are those with at least 50 substantive decisions in the cohort years and complete outcome tracking. The +14.6 percentage point average is calculated across those 70 nationalities.
Sources
- Home Office Immigration System Statistics, year ending March 2026 release (21 May 2026), Asy_D04 Outcome Analysis of asylum claims dataset
- Home Office Asy_D02 Initial Decisions on asylum claims dataset, same release
- Home Office annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, asylum support spending lines
- First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) statistics published by the Ministry of Justice
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