Impact of EU Eligibility changes on electoral registers
As part of the Elections Act 2022, the UK government made changes to which EU Citizens were eligible to vote in some UK elections. This affected:
- local elections, mayoral elections and Greater London Assembly elections in England
- local and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland
- Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales
Local authorities carried out an Eligibility Confirmation Review (ECR). This meant they reviewed the eligibility of all EU citizens who were registered to vote in their area.
As part of this review, they contacted all EU citizens to either:
- let them know they are still eligible to vote in some UK elections
- tell them they aren’t sure if they are eligible to vote in some UK elections, and ask them to provide information to confirm if they are eligible
Following this process, we’ve analysed the registers to understand how many EU citizens based in the UK were affected by this review.
To remain eligible to vote, an EU citizen is required to be either:
- a Qualifying EU citizen – a citizen of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain who is resident in the UK, had permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who did not need permission
- an EU citizen with retained rights – a citizen of any other EU country who on or before 31 December 2020 was legally resident in the UK, had permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who did not need permission, and this has continued without a break (called ‘an EU citizen with retained rights)
The review was completed in January 2025 and all figures in this report reflect the electoral register at the end of the review.
Limitations to the data
There were errors in the software for two electoral management system (EMS) suppliers, affecting 279 of the 315 local authorities. These issues have likely led to undercounting of electors in the data. This affects our ability to accurately report:
- how many EU citizens became ineligible for other reasons (e.g. moved out of the local authority)
- the total number of EU citizens registered under the new criteria on the 31 January 2025
- the numbers of EU citizens who registered before and after the changes came into force
Instances of user error have also been identified. This includes cases where electors were deleted from the system after EROs had already contacted them.
These errors were identified too late to correct data without causing wider inconsistencies across other fields.
Where we are certain the data is accurate, we’ve provided an overview of the ECR process across England and Wales. In some cases, this means excluding groups of local authorities who have been affected by errors and using averages from those where we have accurate data.
Overlapping electoral registration activities—such as the 2024 annual canvass—happened alongside the ECR process.
As a result, some electors who were initially included in the review were later deleted through a process outside of the review. Where this happened, the data does not include the reason for the deletion. This means that there is a difference between the total number of:
- electors subject to review
- electors that EROs determined to be eligible or needed removing from the register
ECR process
Around 2.2 million EU citizens were subject to the review process.
There were two parts to the ECR process:
- local authorities reviewed their area’s electoral register data to see if they could confirm that an EU voter has resided in the UK before 31 December
- local authorities contacted EU citizens whose eligibility couldn’t be established through the review of the electoral registers
Through reviewing their area’s electoral register data, EROs determined that around three quarters (72%) of the EU citizens on the register were still eligible to remain on the electoral register. There was an even split between citizens positively determined because they were qualifying EU citizens and citizens with retained rights.
Local authorities then contacted the remaining 28% of electors to ask them to provide information to confirm if they were eligible to remain registered. Around half of those contacted responded with information that proved they were eligible to remain registered.
At the end of the process in January 2025, there were around 1.9 million EU electors. An estimated 200,000 EU citizens were removed from the register, which means the number of EU electors on the register decreased by around 10%.