It now costs the taxpayer £199 a night for every asylum seeker housed in a hotel, according to new Home Office figures — a rise of more than a third in six months, even as ministers insist they are committed to shutting the hotel estate down.
The figure, first reported by GB News, marks a 37 per cent increase on the £144.98 per person per night recorded last October. At that rate, hotel accommodation for a single asylum seeker costs £1,393 a week.
The Home Office says the jump is partly a side effect of winding the estate down. Home Office minister Anna Turley told the Home Affairs Committee: “This figure has increased since the figures we last provided in October 2025, as hotel closures are being implemented in phases. As occupancy falls ahead of full site closure, the department continues to incur costs for some unoccupied rooms, which increases the average cost per person accommodated.”
In other words, hotels approaching closure are still being paid for rooms that are no longer occupied, pushing up the average cost for those still in them.
The department also says far fewer people are in hotels than before. There were 16,021 asylum seekers in hotels at the end of June, down from 36,273 at the end of September — and 71 per cent below the September 2023 peak of 56,018. The number of hotels in use fell from 200 to 160 over the same period.
Ministers under pressure over hotel pledge
Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledged to end the use of asylum hotels altogether, a commitment the Government says it still stands by. Ministers argue the rising average cost is the price of the wind-down itself — paying for empty rooms in hotels that are being closed in stages.
But with the nightly figure now at £199 per person, the pressure to show the closures are happening fast enough is only likely to grow.
Reporting based on GB News and Home Office figures.
