By CJ McKinney, Melanie Gower

The UK has agreements with some countries for the return of people lacking legal residence. These agreements take various forms and are not usually published.

The attached briefing lists known agreements and links to the text where available. The government has confirmed the existence of some form of agreement with 24 countries since 2021, some recent and some struck up to 20 years ago:

In 2021, the government confirmed that it has formal returns agreements with Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, China, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Iraq, Kuwait, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Korea, South Sudan, Switzerland and Vietnam. That accounts for 16 countries, excluding the deal with Afghanistan because it has been inoperable in practice since regime change later in 2021.

Since 2021, the government has signed formal returns agreements with Albania, Georgia, Serbia, Moldova and Pakistan. These five replaced European Union agreements with those countries in which the UK took part while an EU member.

In 2021, the UK and India agreed a migration and mobility partnership that included provisions on returns.

In 2024, the UK and Bangladesh announced an informal returns agreement described as standard operating procedures.

In 2020, the UK and Ireland set up an informal returns agreement covering asylum seekers (rather than British or Irish citizens), described as non-legally binding operational arrangements.

There may well be other informal or even formal agreements, the existence of which has not been disclosed. The arrangement with Ireland was not announced at the time and only came to public attention in 2024.

Agreements made in the form of a treaty are published and laid before Parliament, but the government is not required to publish a memorandum of understanding or operational protocol. It has refused, for example, to disclose the contents of the 2022 Pakistan agreement.

London: UK House of Commons Library, 2024. 10p.