Boarding & International: The Census 2025/26
The boarding sector and its international demand pipeline — DfE census and UK Home Office visa data, in one place.
UK independent schools' international pipeline has contracted three years in a row.
Child Student visas fell 16% in the VAT year. The boarding sector is shrinking alongside.
Schools with the highest boarding dependency are losing boarders fastest.
A few markets are still growing. The data below shows which.
Overview
Boarding is contracting, and so is the international demand feeding it.
- International pipeline. UK Home Office Child Student visa grant data. By law this visa goes only to independent fee-paying schools with a Home Office sponsor licence. State schools cannot sponsor a Child Student visa. Every visa in the dataset equals one international child at a UK independent school.
- Boarding sector. UK Department for Education annual school census for England. Six releases, 20/21 to 25/26.
The Two Datasets in One View
DfE boarder numbers (England) and UK Child Student visa grants tracked side by side. Both peaked in 2022/23 and have declined every year since. The single largest single-year drops in both came in the year VAT took effect.
Risks & Opportunities
Filter for your school's profile. Insights tagged to your dimensions appear below.
Your School Profile
Filters are optional and stackable. With nothing selected, all insights show. As you apply filters, only insights tagged to matching dimensions remain.
International Trends
UK Child Student visas — the demand pipeline feeding international boarders.
The Full Cycle (2009–2025)
Child Student visa grants over 17 years. The decade-long climb, the COVID crash, the post-pandemic boom to a 2023 peak, and the sharp decline since.
Quarterly Seasonality
Continents & Regions
Macro view — six continents, twenty world regions. No country-level drill-down on this tab; for that, head to Country Deep Dive.
All Continents & Regions
Each continent is a bold parent row; click the chevron to expand and reveal its constituent regions. Default state: collapsed.
| Continent / Region | 2024 | 2025 | Δ this year | % | History |
|---|
All Continents — Trend Over Time
Six continents tracked together across 2020–2025.
All Regions — Trend Over Time
All twenty regions tracked together, colour-coded by continent. Click a continent name to toggle every region in it on or off; click any individual region to toggle just that one. The legend remembers your selections until you reload.
Country Deep Dive
All 180 nationalities sending children to UK schools — flat reference table at top, hierarchical drill-down beneath.
Country Deep Dive — Continent → Region → Country
Three-level hierarchy. Each row has two independent controls: the chevron expands children (continent → regions; region → countries); the See history button opens a 2020–2025 figures table and trend chart for that node, no matter the level. Default state: fully collapsed, sorted by 2025 volume descending.
| Continent / Region / Country | 2024 | 2025 | Δ this year | % | History |
|---|
All Countries — Comparison Table
All 180 nationalities in one comparison view. Sort by clicking any column header. Filter by region, search by name, or focus on countries with substantial 2025 volume.
| Country ⇅ | Region ⇅ | 2021 ⇅ | 2022 ⇅ | 2023 ⇅ | 2024 ⇅ | 2025 ⇅ | Δ this year ⇅ | % this year ⇅ |
|---|
Movers
Where demand is growing, where it's contracting — across multiple time windows.
▲ Growers (0)
▼ Decliners (0)
Refusal Rates
Granted visas are only half the story. Some nationalities face significant refusal barriers.
For every country with 100+ Child Student visa decisions in 2023–2025, here's the share that were refused. Vietnam, Kenya and India face the steepest refusal rates — their underlying demand is higher than granted-visa numbers suggest.
The Boarding Sector
442 boarding schools in England. 56,702 boarders. Down sharply this year.