Estimate of £400,000 cost per asylum seeker based on the Netherlands, not the UK

“Yesterday, 703 people came to the UK illegally. Studies show each costs the taxpayer roughly £400,000 over their lifetime.
“So the cost of not having a border for one day was £281 million.”

Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick MP claimed last week that studies show each person arriving in the UK “illegally” “costs the taxpayer roughly £400,000 over their lifetime”.

Mr Jenrick’s claim appeared in articles published by the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express, and was also shared on the former immigration minister’s X (formerly Twitter) account.

But the £400,000 figure is based on a report published by researchers at the University of Amsterdam which estimated that the net cost of “asylum migration” to the Dutch treasury averages €475,000 per immigrant (approximately £400,000). It didn’t look at the cost of asylum seekers, or people arriving specifically by small boat as Mr Jenrick’s post suggests, in the UK.

As the study itself notes, findings on the fiscal impact of immigrants vary by country, so it’s not necessarily appropriate to directly apply this estimate of the cost of asylum seekers in the Netherlands to the UK.

It’s also worth noting that while Mr Jenrick cites “two studies from the University of Amsterdam that consider the cost to the state”, the links shared in his post both refer to the same study.

What does the report say?

The report looked into the “net contribution” to the Dutch treasury of various groups of migrants to the Netherlands, broken down based on motive for migration, and country of origin. The calculation includes the net contribution of both first generation immigrants and their children (referred to in the study as “second generation” immigrants).

The report looks at the amount a person contributes to the Dutch treasury (for example, through taxes and social security payments), minus the amount the Dutch treasury spends on a person (for example, on education, healthcare or welfare payments).

It found that people who moved to the Netherlands for the purposes of seeking asylum cost an average of €475,000 per immigrant. 

The report attributes this net cost to “very weak labour market performance and high benefit utilization”, noting that “unlike labour immigrants, these asylum immigrants are subject to restrictions during the asylum procedure for performing paid work, as a result of which most of them start their stay as status holders from a position of benefit dependence.” 

What about asylum seekers in the UK?

A number of studies have estimated the lifetime net cost of immigrants to the UK, but Full Fact has not found an alternative specific figure for the lifetime net contribution of asylum seekers in the UK.

The University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory says: “Research on the fiscal impact of refugees is limited, but it is likely that over the course of their lifetimes, refugees require net fiscal support because they tend to have lower employment rates and often struggle to find well-paid work.”

It further says: “While the fiscal impact of migration to the UK is small, refugees are therefore less likely than other migrants to be among those who make net fiscal contributions (i.e. to pay more into government finances through tax and other contributions than it costs to provide them with benefits and public services).”

The government has published information on the cost of supporting asylum seekers while their claims are being processed.

The Home Office estimated that in 2022/23 the “unit cost” of processing each case in the asylum workload was around £21,000.

And in an impact assessment of the Illegal Migration Act published last year, it estimated that the cost of supporting someone for four years while their asylum claim was processed was £106,000.

But, to be clear, these figures aren’t comparable with the £400,000 figure, as they refer to a limited set of costs associated with supporting asylum seekers while their applications are being processed. They don’t include any subsequent costs or contributions to the economy.