UK Age Assessments: 326 Children Wrongly Classed as Adults in Six Months

The Home Office wrongly classified 326 children as adults between July and December 2025 — 17% of the 1,885 people it initially treated as adults — according to the first age assessment statistics it published in May 2026 as part of its quarterly immigration figures.

The new data shows which body carried out each of 3,720 assessments in that period and whether earlier decisions were overturned. Before this, only charities tracked the figures. A 2024 report by Helen Bamber Foundation, Humans for Rights Network and the Refugee Council found the Home Office wrongly assessed over 1,300 children as adults between January 2022 and June 2023. In 2025, the Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium counted at least 262 misclassified children between January and June 2024 alone.

The numbers matter because an adult classification follows a young person through the entire asylum process.

What changes when a child is recorded as an adult?

A young person found to be an adult on arrival receives an assigned date of birth making them over 18, dispersal to adult accommodation — mostly hotels — and no referral to a local authority. Courts have found housing unaccompanied children in hotels unlawful, yet wrongly assessed children continue to be placed there, with few or no safeguarding procedures.

The consequences are severe:

• Re-trafficking risk. A 2024 Every Child Protected Against Trafficking report found children in adult accommodation face increased risks of re-trafficking and exploitation. In 2023 it emerged that more than 440 unaccompanied children, some as young as 12, had gone missing from Home Office-run hotels. The Joint Committee on Human Rights confirmed in August 2026 that 472 children had gone missing from Home Office accommodation; 432 were later located, some in exploitative situations, but 40 remain missing, including two believed to still be under 18.
• Detention and removal. The UK-France agreement excludes unaccompanied children from removal, but children wrongly assessed as adults lose that protection. Courts have declined to determine age in challenges to removal under the agreement, leaving officials to resolve the question after the fact.
• Criminal conviction. Humans for Rights Network reported that between June 2022 and April 2025 at least 29 children wrongly assessed as adults were charged with illegal entry offences under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. At least 18 went to adult prisons; local authorities have since accepted that 17 are children.
• Less secure leave. Since 2 March 2026, adults and accompanied children granted refugee status or humanitarian protection receive only 30 months' permission to stay. Unaccompanied children remain exempt and keep five years' leave.

The Home Office's own statistics underline the stakes. In the year ending June 2026, 57% of initial decisions for unaccompanied children resulted in protection or other leave, against 37% for all other claims.

How does the initial assessment work?

Two Home Office staff — one a Chief Immigration Officer or Higher Executive Officer — decide on appearance and demeanour whether someone presents as significantly over 18. No social worker needs to be present. Assessments happen on arrival, often after weeks of malnourishment, sleep deprivation and abuse during the journey. The guidance itself acknowledges a wide margin of error.

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration criticised the process in his July 2025 report, citing poor-quality decision-making, poor record-keeping, adversarial questioning and young people reportedly pressured to sign declarations that they were over 18. The guidance now requires officers to explain the consequences before a young person signs a 'Statement of Age' form, and to treat anyone showing signs of lacking capacity as a child.

What about AI facial age estimation?

Guidance published on 29 May 2026 says the Home Office intends to add AI facial age estimation as a supplementary tool. Testing runs throughout 2026, with border deployment planned for 2027. The government has abandoned 'scientific methods' such as X-rays and MRI scans, even though section 52 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2024 keep them in force.

The Home Office admits the technology is least accurate at the 16-to-18 boundary, with a margin of error of around two and a half years even in the best systems, and performance varying by ethnicity, skin tone, gender, place of birth and image quality. The Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium warned an algorithmic estimate may give an illusion of objectivity to a flawed process, and legal challenges seem likely.

How can a wrong decision be challenged?

There is no right of appeal against an initial age assessment, only judicial review. Otherwise, a legal representative or supporting organisation must refer the young person to a local authority.

A standard operating procedure published on 19 June 2026 creates an Age Dispute Resolution Team, aiming to respond within 24 hours on working days when someone in adult accommodation claims to be a child. Providers must complete an Age Dispute Progress Form and follow one of three routes: refer to both local authority and Home Office if concerns persist; refer to the local authority if no initial decision was made; or signpost the individual to a legal representative if no new issues arise.

Local authorities must still conduct their own enquiries even after a negative Home Office decision, or risk breaching section 20 of the Children Act 1989. Full age assessments follow the leading case R (B) v Merton [2003] EWHC 1689 (Admin).

The National Age Assessment Board, operational since 31 March 2023 with Home Office-employed social workers, handles referred cases. In February 2026 the Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium described its assessments as adversarial and credibility-focused rather than child-centred, and called for the board to be disbanded. In May 2026 the government proposed making all board assessments binding on local authorities; the Immigration and Asylum Bill introduced on 30 June 2026 contains no such provision. The British Association of Social Workers has objected that binding decisions would strip councils of their safeguarding judgement.

One takeaway in plain words: whether the Home Office records a young person as a child or an adult now shapes their accommodation, their criminal exposure, their length of leave and even whether they stay in the UK at all.