The grant rate they don't tell you: 70 nationalities see rates rise after appeal

The Home Office publishes initial decision grant rates. They know these are misleading.

Every politician who quotes the asylum grant rate quotes the initial decision. For dozens of nationalities, that number hides what actually happens next. The Home Office’s own outcome analysis (Asy_D04, December 2025) tracks every cohort of claims through appeals and subsequent decisions.

The numbers tell a different story.

The biggest uplifts:

Nationality	Initial	After appeals	Uplift
Sri Lanka	27.0%	59.4%	+32.4pp
DR Congo	33.4%	60.3%	+26.9pp
Iraq	30.8%	56.3%	+25.5pp
Zimbabwe	24.1%	48.8%	+24.7pp
Palestine	56.9%	79.6%	+22.7pp
Russia	57.9%	78.9%	+21.0pp
Ethiopia	59.2%	79.8%	+20.6pp
Iran	66.7%	85.4%	+18.7pp

70 nationalities see their grant rates rise after appeals. Average uplift: +14.1 percentage points.

The initial decision system is getting it wrong. Routinely. Appeal judges apply the same law to the same facts and reach different conclusions. That is not a functioning system. That is a backlog factory.

Every person waiting for an appeal costs approximately £186/day in support and accommodation. Sri Lankan applicants wait years for an appeal that succeeds 59% of the time. The initial decision was wrong more often than right. YOUR money pays for that failure.

Quote an initial grant rate of 27% for Sri Lanka and it sounds like most claims are unfounded. The true rate is 59%. More than half have genuine protection needs. The headline number is the lie.

Source: Home Office Immigration Statistics, Asy_D04, December 2025 release. True grant rate = (latest grants of protection + other leave) / (latest grants + latest refusals) x 100. “Latest” includes all appeal outcomes and subsequent decisions. Claim cohorts 2015-2023 (most cases have settled outcomes).