Initial accommodation centres
Initial accommodation for asylum applicants can be in reception centres (called initial accommodation centres), or hotels or other accommodation (used as contingency, or emergency accommodation when the centres are full). Details of asylum accommodation is generally not disclosed because of the danger from far-right activists.
The use of hotels as asylum accommodation has increased considerably in the past few years. The government is trying to reduce the number of hotels in use.[1] The Home Office is not transparent about the number of hotels in use,[2] but a Home Office minister said in November 2024 that there were 220 hotels in use,[3] this is down from a reported 395 in March 2023.[4]
People accommodated in a hotel, even if only for one or two nights, have limited or no access to many of the reception-related rights granted to asylum applicants (e.g. legal advice, healthcare, etc), with reported cases of persons having only restricted access to accommodation. The consequence of such temporary ‘emergency’ accommodation is that it additionally delays their access to the support system and other welfare services to which they are entitled, as it may take a couple of days before they access advice and complete an application for asylum support.[5]
Asylum applicants should not stay in initial accommodation for any longer than 3-4 weeks[6] but there can be dispersal backlogs and it is common to find asylum applicants stuck in initial accommodation for many months due to a lack of dispersal accommodation.[7] There was a huge increase in the use of hotel and other full-board accommodation during 2020 and 2021, this has continued since. The Home Office issued a statement about the use of hotels and other temporary accommodation.[8] The use of hotels for anything other than a very short period continues to be criticised, including in a report from the Refugee Council in July 2022.[9]
If the asylum applicant qualifies for Section 95 support they are moved into smaller units, mainly flats and shared houses, in the same region, but as regions are large this may not be within travelling distance of their legal representative if they have one. Dispersal Accommodation is in the North, Midlands and South West of England and in Wales and Scotland, very limited numbers are housed in the South of England or in London. Asylum applicants have no choice of location. If asylum applicants are not detained after screening there is no distinction in the initial accommodation based on the claim or its route.
Initial accommodation centres, hotels and former military barracks are used to accommodate people receiving section 98 support and some receiving section 95 support. The number of people supported under section 98 at the end of 2024 was 42,831.[10]
Kent County Council is seeking to increase the use of reception centres for unaccompanied asylum seeking children in its care.[11]
A court ruled that the provision from local authorities to house people otherwise at risk of street homelessness can include those with no recourse to public funds, including people refused asylum and appeal rights exhausted.[12]
Dispersed accommodation
All accommodation for asylum applicants is managed by three large private companies under contract to the Home Office, much of which is provided though sub-contracts to smaller companies.[13] The assessment process for eligibility for the accommodation remains with the Home Office, which is ultimately responsible in law for the provision of accommodation. The companies remain responsible to the Home Office under the terms of their contracts to provide and manage the accommodation. New contracts were approved in January 2019 for a ten-year period.[14]
A UK charity has written a guide to the 2019 contracts and has details about all types of accommodation and services covered.[15]
The contract between the Home Office and the private companies requires that families shall be housed in self-contained accommodation.[16] In practice there is some use of hostel-type accommodation for families with small children, and some lone parent families are housed with unrelated families, though nuclear families are normally kept together.[17] Accommodation frequently fails to meet the needs of supported persons, particularly those with children or mobility and health needs. Asylum accommodation has been repeatedly criticised for failing to provide security, respect for privacy and basic levels of hygiene and safety, particularly for women; in the media and in the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee report published in December 2018.[18]
The most common form of accommodation after the initial period in the initial accommodation centres is in privately owned flats and houses, managed by the companies contracted to the Home Office, or by their sub-contractors.
[1] Hansard, ‘Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation’, 20 November 2024, available here.
[2] Written response, ‘Asylum: Hotels Question for Home Office UIN 10598’, 24 January 2024, available here.
[3] Hansard, ‘Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation’, 20 November 2024, available here.
[4] BBC News, ‘Where are asylum seekers being housed in hotels in the UK?’, 25 October 2023, available here.
[5] Information provided by Refugee Action.
[6] Home Office, A guide to living in asylum accommodation, available here.
[7] Home Affairs Select Committee, Asylum Accommodation, January 2017, available here.
[8] Home Office media blog, ‘The use of temporary hotels to house asylum seekers during Covid-19‘, 8 August 2020, available here.
[9] Refugee Council, Lives on Hold: Experiences of people living in hotel asylum accommodation, July 2022, available here.
[10] Home Office, Immigration system statistics data tables, Asylum seekers in receipt of support detailed datasets, year ending December 2024, table Asy_D09 initial and contingency accommodation, 27 February 2025, available here.
[11] Kent County Council, ‘Reception centres for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children’, accessed 16 March 2025, available here.
[12] Shelter, ‘High Court rules councils can lawfully accommodate street homeless people with ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ – will the government now provide proper guidance?’, 10 March 2021, available here.
[13] Home Office, Living in dispersal accommodation, 25 May 2023, available here.
[14] Home Office, ‘New asylum accommodation contracts awarded’, 8 January 2019, available here.
[15] Asylum Matters; The Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts – a guide, 2019, available here.
[16] Home Office, Compass Project: Schedule 2, Accommodation and Transport, Statement of Requirements, B.8.
[17] Evidence given to the Parliamentary Enquiry on Asylum Support for Children and Young People.
[18] House of Commons, Asylum accommodation: Replacing COMPASS, December 2018, available here.