UK‑France migrant deal to return people swapped for legal migrants ends

The British government has announced that the "one in, one out" scheme, which saw a small number of Channel‑crossing migrants returned to France in exchange for legal migrants coming from France, will be suspended.

The pilot, launched over a year ago, only saw around 1,500 people moved back to France, while the same number of French residents were given permission to settle in the UK. Officials say the programme did not achieve the scale needed to persuade governments that it was a viable alternative to regularisation.

In the coming weeks the Home Office will continue to use flights to swiftly remove small‑boat arrivals who have no right to remain, but will rely on lessons learned from the pilot to speed up future removals.

A Home Secretary said the numbers were still small and it was harder to drive large volumes of removals weekly into the French system. The UK has already carried out 19,135 Channel crossings in 2026, a 42% fall on the same period in 2025, when 32,188 people used small boats to reach Britain.

The most recent data, shown in a bar chart below, shows the total number of people arriving by small boat each year since 2018. The year‑to‑date 2026 figure of 19,135 is the fifth highest for the period.

There is also a figure table ranking the top five countries of origin for small‑boat arrivals, with Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iran leading the list.

The Home Office says 2,335 of these new arrivals were identified as potential victims of human trafficking or modern slavery over the last fiscal year.

UK policy continues to aim to reduce the flow of small‑boat crossings and to take stricter action against the organised groups that facilitate them.