Six times as many Hong Kongers apply to live in UK as EU citizens, Home Office figures reveal

More than six times as many Hong Kongers have applied to live in the UK this year as EU citizens, Home Office figures have revealed.

Some 34,300 people from Hong Kong applied for visas in the first three months of this year through a bespoke scheme that enables British National Overseas (BNO) passport holders to escape the Chinese authorities’ crackdown.

That compares with just 5,354 EU citizens who applied for visas in the first quarter of 2021, the first under the post-Brexit immigration system ending free movement and requiring them to pay for entry to the UK.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said she was “delighted” by the number of Hong Kongers taking up the five-year visa scheme to support them and their families “threatened by draconian security laws on Hong Kong.”  

“Global Britain will always stand up for what is right and uphold our commitments – and this new route underlines that. This is how a fair, flexible and modern immigration system should work,” said Ms Patel.  

The permanent scheme offers a much more generous visa than previous routes for Hongkongers, including five years’ leave to remain. After the five years they  can apply for settled status and after a further 12 months they can apply for citizenship.  

The five year visa for a single adult costs an estimated £3,370 including visa and NHS surcharge. For a family of three to become British citizens, it would cost almost £20,000, according to the Migration Observatory at Oxford University.

They cannot claim benefits and must demonstrate that they can financially support themselves and any dependents for the first six months of their time in the UK.  

The 34,000 is more than a tenth of the 300,000 that the Government expects to request the visa over the next five years.   There are 350,000 Hongkongers who hold BNO passports and a further 2.5 million who are eligible for one.   

With an additional 2.5 million dependents, up to 5.4 million Hongkongers could apply for the visa and a path to full British citizenship.   

The Government has put no limits on the number who could be admitted but expects many to stay in Hong Kong or prefer to move to places in the Pacific region such as Taiwan or Singapore.  

Migration experts blamed the low EU numbers on a surge by Europeans to beat the December 31 cut off for freedom of movement after which they would face a more expensive and bureaucratic process to enter the UK.   

They said the Covid-19 crisis, rising unemployment, January lockdown and travel restrictions will also have contributed to lower mobility.   

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory, said: “Covid has delayed the impacts of the post-Brexit immigration system in some respects. 

“In normal times, we might have expected to see employers scrambling to work out what they need to do to recruit EU nationals after the end of free movement. But the pandemic has meant that many employers don’t need to use the new immigration system yet. 

“So it could be some time before we get a good sense of how many EU citizens are moving to the UK under the new rules and what their impacts appear to be.”