Migrant crisis: Number of foreigners claiming benefits skyrockets to 1.9 MILLION – outnumbering entire population of Essex, bombshell study reveals

While it was revealed in July there were 1.26m foreign nationals claiming Universal Credit, having risen from 883,000 in 2022, obtained by the Centre for Migration Control from the Office for National Statistics shows hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals are claiming other benefit types than Universal Credit.

The Labour Force Survey conducted between April and June 2025 shows that there were 623,377 foreign nationals claiming a benefit, or combination of benefits, that did not include Universal Credit.

Between March 2022 and March 2025, the UK spent £24.79bn on Universal Credit payments to households containing non-UK/Irish nationals.

In total, there were 383,011 EU nationals claiming a non-UC benefit combination and 240,366 non-EU nationals claiming a non-UC benefit combination.

However, the Labour Force Survey is known to under-report the number of benefit claimants.

This was confirmed by the ONS who told the CMC that "under-reporting of benefits in surveys is a known issue".

The LFS reports there are nearly 123,000 foreign nationals in receipt of housing benefit, 158,000 in receipt of sickness or disability benefit, and a staggering 811,000 in receipt of child allowance, including those on Universal Credit.

It suggests that, of those foreign nationals claiming Universal Credit, 40 per cent are claiming no other benefit type in tandem.

A further 36 per cent are claiming Universal Credit in tandem with child allowance, while 7.7 per cent are claiming Universal Credit with disability or sickness benefits.

Meanwhile, five per cent are claiming Universal Credit along with both housing benefit and child allowance, and three per cent along with both child allowance and sickness or disability benefits.

Reacting to the figures on GB News, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "If I said to you, actually nobody from a foreign country should get benefits, well, you might ask some questions, but when you see the sheer numbers, it's quite something.

"Now, some work that's been done by the centre for Migration Control is now suggesting that a minimum of 1.9 million foreign born people are claiming benefits of various kinds in this country.

"Remember, we'd already learnt that 1.26 million people were on Universal Credit, 1 in 6 on Universal Credit is foreign born, but actually they're suggesting the numbers could be even higher than that. And that's before the Boriswave.

"You remember Boris Johnson opening up the doors in a way that had never been seen before. And they all start very, very soon."