The Telegraph: Deporting one illegal migrant costs UK around £5,000

The deportation of one illegal migrant costs the UK authorities around £5,000 (more than AZN 10,000), the UK Home Office said, according to The Telegraph, cited by Report.

Between February 1, 2025, and January 31, 2026, a total of 2,835 migrants were deported from the UK on charter flights. During this period, the Home Office hired 74 aircraft, with each flight costing around £186,000. The newspaper calculated that the total cost of deportations by air amounted to £13.8 million, equivalent to nearly £5,000 per person.

One deportation, however, cost London several tens of thousands of pounds because on January 7, authorities had to charter a separate aircraft to transport a migrant to France due to the migrant's health condition, the newspaper reported.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the high cost of deporting an individual migrant shows that the system is inefficient and called for migrants to be deported on regular commercial flights.

The UK deported more migrants to Albania than to any other country over the past year. A total of 42 flights returned 1,810 Albanian illegal migrants to their home country. Romania ranked second, with 329 people returned, followed by France, which received 282 migrants.