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Cost estimate*

How much are small boat arrivals costing the UK?

Megadinghy uses a simple user-specified estimate of £144 per person per day, accrued from the date each person was recorded or projected as arriving. This is not an official full public-sector cost calculation.

£213.49 millionestimated cost to date using daily accrual from each 2026 arrival date, plus today's rolling projection.

How is the cost calculated?

The formula is deliberately simple: each day's arrivals × £144 × the number of days from that arrival date through today. With the current rolling estimate, that produces £213.49 million.

What this number is not

It is not a verified government spending total, not a full asylum-system cost, not a legal-aid estimate, not an accommodation budget, and not a whole-economy calculation. It is a transparent on-page estimate using the £144-per-person-per-day figure requested for this satirical dashboard.

Why include it?

People search for phrases like "how much are migrants costing the UK" and "cost per migrant arrival". This page answers that search clearly, while avoiding the misleading impression that a single number can explain every real public cost.

Related searches

See weekly arrivals, monthly arrivals, and yearly arrivals.