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The UK has seen a spike in the number of migrants applying for citizenship and permanent settlement ahead of a planned government clampdown.

Government data shows what appears to be a rush to secure residency rights in response to changes announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that would force migrants to wait longer before they can gain them.

The Home Office said 199,628 people were granted settlement, giving them the right to live, work and study in the UK permanently, in the year through June 2026. Most granted indefinite leave to remain can then apply for citizenship after 12 months.

These figures represent a 24% increase from a year earlier and the highest number since 2010. Over the same 12 month period, 245,520 people were granted British citizenship. Although that was slightly lower than a year earlier, the number of citizenship applications surged 17% to a record 315,224. There was a 44% increase in the number of citizenship applications refused.

The proposed reforms to indefinite leave to remain, which offers permanent settlement rights and a route to citizenship, would double the qualification period from five to 10 years and are controversial among members of the governing Labour Party.

The government is currently consulting on the proposals for stricter settlement rules and new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is under pressure from Labour MPs to reconsider whether to push ahead with the changes, first announced under his predecessor Keir Starmer.

Migration is a difficult political topic for Burnham, who also faces pressure from parties on the right over the issue. The Conservatives and Reform UK parties have suggested they would remove settlement rights from people who currently have it.

The UK continued to see a rise in the number of Americans applying to remain in the country. More than 9,400 US nationals applied for British citizenship, either through registration or naturalization, over the last year. But the US remains behind India, Pakistan, Italy, Nigeria, Romania and Poland in the list of nationalities seeking citizenship.

Nuni Jorgensen, researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the increase in citizenship applications reflects rising migration with a particularly sharp jump among European Union nationals pointing to a sudden change in people’s desire to become British.

“The data do not tell us why, although it is possible that government and opposition party debates about restricting rights or removing people without citizenship may have played a role. Research suggests that uncertainty can encourage migrants to secure their status by applying for citizenship,” she said.

The figures also showed a sharp fall in the number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels, a flashpoint for community tensions in recent years.

The figure stood at 16,021 at the end of June, down 50% year-on-year and the lowest since data was first reported in 2022.

Mahmood said in a statement the Labour government is “restoring control” of the contentious asylum system.