On 6 January 2026 the Home Office issued an official notice confirming that its ‘Monthly Entry Clearance Visa Applications’ dataset for January 2026 will be published on 12 February 2026 at 09:30 GMT. The monthly bulletin tracks demand across work, study and family visa categories and is closely watched by employers and relocation providers for early warnings of processing backlogs or policy-driven demand swings.
The forthcoming release is expected to be the first to capture the impact of the higher Skilled Worker salary thresholds that came into force in July 2025 and the seasonal lull often seen after the December holiday peak. Analysts will also look for early signs of behavioural change ahead of the 8 January English-language upgrade to B2 level and the 25 February enforcement date for mandatory ETAs.
For organisations needing practical assistance in turning these data points into swift, compliant visa action, VisaHQ’s UK hub (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) provides end-to-end support—from document checking and application preparation to expedited submission and live status tracking—across Skilled Worker, Student and Family routes. Leveraging their online portal, mobility teams can quickly scale up or down in response to any surge or slowdown highlighted by the Home Office statistics.
![Home Office Schedules Release of January 2026 Visa-Application Statistics]()
Why does this matter for global mobility? A surge or drop in certain categories can translate into longer lead times for Certificates of Sponsorship, biometric appointments and BRP production, all of which directly influence assignment start dates. Companies with large Q1 graduate-intake programmes, for instance, will want to benchmark their sponsorship volumes against national figures to anticipate processing bottlenecks.
The statistics will be broken down by nationality, route and decision type, offering HR teams granular insight into refusal rates and average processing times. Past releases have prompted policy tweaks—such as reallocating caseworkers to high-volume cohorts—so stakeholders should be ready to feed any anomalies into Home Office consultation channels.
Mobility managers are advised to diarise the 12 February publication date and be prepared to update leadership on any material trends. The dataset will be accessible via the Home Office ‘Immigration System Statistics’ portal, with raw CSV files suitable for integration into internal dashboards.
The forthcoming release is expected to be the first to capture the impact of the higher Skilled Worker salary thresholds that came into force in July 2025 and the seasonal lull often seen after the December holiday peak. Analysts will also look for early signs of behavioural change ahead of the 8 January English-language upgrade to B2 level and the 25 February enforcement date for mandatory ETAs.
For organisations needing practical assistance in turning these data points into swift, compliant visa action, VisaHQ’s UK hub (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) provides end-to-end support—from document checking and application preparation to expedited submission and live status tracking—across Skilled Worker, Student and Family routes. Leveraging their online portal, mobility teams can quickly scale up or down in response to any surge or slowdown highlighted by the Home Office statistics.
Why does this matter for global mobility? A surge or drop in certain categories can translate into longer lead times for Certificates of Sponsorship, biometric appointments and BRP production, all of which directly influence assignment start dates. Companies with large Q1 graduate-intake programmes, for instance, will want to benchmark their sponsorship volumes against national figures to anticipate processing bottlenecks.
The statistics will be broken down by nationality, route and decision type, offering HR teams granular insight into refusal rates and average processing times. Past releases have prompted policy tweaks—such as reallocating caseworkers to high-volume cohorts—so stakeholders should be ready to feed any anomalies into Home Office consultation channels.
Mobility managers are advised to diarise the 12 February publication date and be prepared to update leadership on any material trends. The dataset will be accessible via the Home Office ‘Immigration System Statistics’ portal, with raw CSV files suitable for integration into internal dashboards.
