What happens after a refusal
A refusal at first decision is not the end of the process. Here are the numbers: how many people appeal, what share wins, how long the court queue is. And an honest answer on why nobody publishes the chance for your specific country.
Urgent help
The queue has not gone away — it has moved
Over the past year the Home Office has cut its first-decision backlog hard: at the end of June 2026 it stood at 32,401 cases. But people who get a refusal go to court — and the queue has grown there instead: 87,450 asylum cases at the end of March 2026, 2.7 times more than at the Home Office and 12 times more than three years ago. Counting every case type in the immigration chamber, the tribunal queue stands at 151,767.
How many appeals are lodged
Asylum appeals lodged, First-tier Tribunal. An eightfold rise in three years.
How many cases are waiting
Open asylum caseload at each year end. In 2025/26 the court closed 28,364 cases — half as many as were lodged.
What share of appeals is allowed
Share allowed, by year. The peak came in 2022/23 at 50%. It has been falling since: now 39%.
By case type, 2025/26
Share of appeals allowed in the immigration chamber by category. It is computed over cases determined on the merits: 14,607 asylum cases in 2025/26. A further 13,757 were closed without a substantive decision — withdrawn or invalid.
Why there is no figure for your country
This is the most common question — and no government body has an answer. Not because the data is secret, but because it is not counted that way:
- The Ministry of Justice tracks tribunal statistics by case type and hearing venue. The appellant's nationality is not published at all.
- The Home Office used to publish appeal tables by nationality (Asy_D06 and Asy_D07), but they stop at the first quarter of 2023 and have not been updated since.
- UNHCR collects appeal decisions by country of origin — but rounds small numbers to the nearest five. At our volumes that produces nonsense like “15 out of 15 — 100%”, so it cannot be used.
So below is not the share of successful appeals, but a different, honestly named figure that can be computed.
How many grants are added after refusals
For every group of cases the Home Office shows two counts: grants at the initial decision and grants as of today. The difference is what challenging refusals achieved, in all its forms. We divide it by the number of initial refusals to get a ratio: how many grants were added per 100 refusals. We count the 2018-2023 cohorts — they are already largely decided.
Across the UK: per 100 initial refusals, 29 grants were added later. In absolute numbers — 121,330 grants at the initial decision and 148,365 as of today.
Grants added per 100 initial refusals. Countries with fewer than 30 initial refusals are not shown: Armenia, Moldova, Turkmenistan — at such numbers the share shows nothing.
Separately: refusal of support and housing
Challenging a refusal of Section 95 or Section 4 support goes to a different tribunal, not the immigration chamber. In 2025/26, 2,711 appeals were lodged there and 1,546 determined. It is a dispute about money and housing, not about the asylum claim itself: a support refusal does not mean a refusal of your case.
Frequently asked questions
What is the chance of winning an appeal for a citizen of my country?
That figure does not exist anywhere. The Ministry of Justice publishes appeal outcomes by case type and hearing venue, but not by nationality. The Home Office appeal tables (Asy_D06, Asy_D07) stop at the first quarter of 2023 and are no longer updated. Below we show what can be computed per country — the share of people initially refused who received status in the end — but that is not the same thing as the share of successful appeals.
How many people are waiting for a tribunal decision right now?
Asylum: 87,450 cases at the end of 2025/26; counting every case type in the immigration chamber — 151,767. For comparison: 32,401 cases await a first Home Office decision (snapshot end of June 2026; the tribunal's is end of March). The asylum queue in court is 2.7 times longer than at the Home Office.
Is it true that winning has become harder?
In 2025/26, 39% of determined asylum appeals were allowed. The peak was in 2022/23 — 50%. The share has been falling for a third consecutive year.
How long do I have to lodge an appeal?
The deadline is short. Exact deadlines, the form and the procedure are covered on a separate page — /en/appeal. This page is numbers only.
Can I challenge a refusal of support and housing?
Yes — that is a separate Asylum Support tribunal. In 2025/26, 2,711 appeals were lodged there and 1,546 determined. It deals with refusals and discontinuation of Section 95 and Section 4 support, not with the asylum claim itself.
Why are there more "added grants" than successful appeals?
Because more than appeals feed into it. A person may have lodged further submissions, the case may have been reconsidered, or status may have been granted on other grounds; some added grants may come from cases closed as withdrawn. That is why we report a ratio — how many grants were added per 100 initial refusals — and do not present it as appeal statistics.
Where these numbers come from
The tribunal — UK Ministry of Justice, Tribunals statistics quarterly, release 2026-Q1. The tribunal's year is financial: 2025/26 means April to March, not a calendar year. The allowed rate is taken over cases determined at hearing or on papers, weighted by quarter.
What happened to refused people — Home Office, Immigration system statistics, table Asy_D04, release 2026-06. We take the 2018-2023 claim cohorts: they are largely decided, so the gap between the initial and the latest outcome has settled.
Tribunal totals are aggregated from the published venue-level data; the handful of values the publisher suppresses are not included. The two sources' snapshots differ: the tribunal's is end of March 2026, the Home Office's is end of June. Where a figure means something other than it seems, we say so directly. The page is updated after each quarterly release of either source.
Sources: UK Ministry of Justice (tribunal, 2026-Q1) and Home Office (Asy_D04, 2026-06)