More than 1 million foreign nationals claiming universal credit in Britain
The Labour government has published data revealing the number of people claiming universal credit payments in the UK up to June 2025.
According to the data, a total of 7.9 million people were on universal credit in Great Britain in June 2025, an increase of 1.1 million people who were claiming the benefit at the same time last year.
Of the 7.9 million universal credit claimants, the vast majority (83.6%) were UK or Irish citizens, or residents with the right of abode in the United Kingdom.
The remaining 1.3 million of universal credit claimants are foreign nationals. 9.7% of all universal credit claimants are EU citizens with leave to remain in the UK under the EU Settlement Scheme, and 2.7% of all claimants are not part of the EU settlement scheme and have indefinite leave to remain.
Only 1.5% of universal credit claimants were refugees, and 1.0% of claimants had limited leave to remain in the UK.
Ethnicity demographics of benefit claimants align with the broad demography of the UK, with 76.4% from the white ethnic group, 10.3% from the Asian/Asian British ethnicity group, and 6.0% of Black/African/Caribbean/Black British ethnicity.
34% of people on universal credit were employed as of May 2025. The data showed that the proportion of claimants with no work requirements continues to increase, with 3.6 million (42%) under the ‘no work requirements’ regime in June 2025.
The government noted this increase can be attributed to people making new claims to migrate across from Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as part of Move to UC.
58% of all universal credit claimants were women, and the median age of people claiming this benefit is now 40 years old, and it continues to slowly rise.
The graph below shows the proportion of universal credit claimants by immigration status in Great Britain as of June 2025.
