Both groups may need salary conversion or family support, while tuition and property create larger one off transfers.
No full year 2026 figure has been published, so the latest UK picture combines ONS estimates through December 2025 with provisional Home Office applications through June 2026.
UK work and study routes are cooling
Work related arrivals among the ONS non EU+ group fell by 47% during 2025. The Home Office then recorded 30,400 main applicant Skilled Worker applications in the year to June 2026, down 39% on the previous year and leaving a smaller work led acquisition pool.
Sponsored Study visa applications from main applicants held up rather better at 396,000, though they were 8% lower, a smaller change that shifts the customer mix rather than erasing it.
Students create large, seasonal conversions for fees and living costs. Restrictions on dependants shrink the surrounding household flows, while work related relocation is softer.
Departures provide the part of the market that the net figure misses. About 278,000 people in the non EU+ group left during 2025. Of those, 159,000 had originally arrived on study related visas.
A tuition customer may return to repatriate savings or settle a final tenancy. Calling that "lost immigration" is not useful to a payments firm.
British expat corridors split by age
About 246,000 British nationals left the UK long term during 2025, compared with 110,000 who returned, and those gross flows matter more commercially because customers can need transfers in either direction.
Australia is attracting a younger British cohort, with its British born population aged 20 to 29 growing by 40% between June 2021 and June 2025. That age profile points towards wages and daily spending, although the data cannot tell us what each migrant transfers.
Spain counted about 282,000 British born residents at the start of 2025. People aged 65 or over made up roughly 40% of that group. The older profile should produce more pension and property transfers, though that link remains an inference rather than a measured payment flow.
The wealthy exodus headline is ahead of the data
HMRC provisionally counted about 73,000 taxpayers claiming non domiciled status in the tax year ending 2025. The reported fall was 0.5%, too small to support a mass exodus claim for the year covered.
HMRC says the release cannot settle post reform behaviour either because it predates the changes introduced on 6 April 2025.
The new foreign income and gains regime gives qualifying new residents full relief on chosen overseas income or gains during their first four UK tax years. Those relieved funds can be brought into Britain without a further UK tax charge, giving payment firms a defined reason to expect high value inbound conversions.
The Temporary Repatriation Facility lets past remittance basis users designate legacy overseas capital at 12% in the first two years, then 15% in the final year, giving them a reason to move large sums within the window. Foreign income and gains relief could prompt inbound transfers too, even if wealthy headcount stays flat.
Migration is becoming more selective worldwide
The OECD counted 6.2 million new permanent immigrants across its members in 2024. Compared with earlier years, the count was 4% below 2023 but remained 15% above 2019, so the cooldown sits on top of a larger market. Family migration accounted for 44% of the total, which helps explain why tighter work routes do not empty existing corridors. Temporary labour migration also remained high, with about 2.3 million permits issued, excluding Poland.
Tougher Skilled Worker rules do not neatly shrink payment demand. Family ties persist after arrival, while temporary assignments and overseas remote staff still create payroll flows.
Canada's 2026 plan targets 385,000 new temporary residents, against 673,650 in its 2025 plan, showing the intended policy squeeze. Permanent admissions are targeted at 380,000, but both numbers remain policy intentions rather than completed arrivals.
Existing migrant stock keeps transfers moving
The UN estimated that 304 million people lived outside their country of birth in 2024, up from 275 million in 2020, so the number of expats and immigrants still grew overall. Officially recorded remittances to low and middle income countries were estimated by the World Bank at $685 billion that year, compared with $647 billion in 2023, giving providers an existing market before any 2026 arrivals.
Newcomers bring first time transfers, while longer settled migrants provide repeat flows. Buying property or returning home can later produce a larger conversion and remains the main line of business for the majority of currency brokers.
A money transfer or remittance ocorridor can change direction over a customer's life. One student may send pounds into Britain for tuition, then send earnings home after graduation. Keeping the account through a later move home has rather better economics than acquiring a stranger for each transaction.
Work routes and student demand have both cooled during 2026, without taking gross movement down with them. British emigration still sends payments in the opposite direction.
For a 2026 market model, I would use gross arrivals and departures by corridor, then separate students from workers. I would also add existing diaspora stock, then estimate how often each segment transfers money. The headline net migration figure can sit in the appendix, where it will do less harm.
Tax references in this article are general information and not personal tax advice.
Sources
- ONS, long term international migration, year ending December 2025: UK arrivals, departures and provisional net migration estimates.
- Home Office, monthly visa applications through June 2026: Skilled Worker and Sponsored Study application trends.
- ONS, UK emigration explained: British migration and resident profiles in Australia and Spain.
- HMRC, non domiciled taxpayer statistics: provisional tax year ending 2025 population.
- HMRC, foreign income and gains regime: eligibility and treatment of relieved funds.
- HMRC, reform of taxation for non UK domiciled individuals: Temporary Repatriation Facility duration and rates.
- OECD, International Migration Outlook 2025: permanent, family and temporary labour migration figures.
- Canada, 2026 to 2027 departmental plan: temporary and permanent resident targets.
- UN DESA, International Migrant Stock 2024: worldwide migrant stock.
- World Bank, estimated remittance flows for 2024: remittance estimate for low and middle income countries.
The payment consequences are editorial inferences from these patterns, particularly the customer profiles and potential tax regime transfer effect. The same caveat applies to the direction of lifecycle flows.
