Brexit Five Years On: How Trade, Migration and Travel Have Changed

On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom formally left the European Union after 47 years of membership, although it stayed inside the single market and customs union for a further 11 months to keep trade flowing. Five years on, the consequences are easier to measure across several areas of everyday life, from business paperwork to the queues travellers face at the border.

This explainer summarises five of the most important ways Brexit has reshaped the UK, and looks ahead to the new digital border requirements that will soon affect anyone travelling between Britain and Europe.

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Trade, migration and money

On trade, most economists judge that leaving the single market and customs union has weighed on UK goods trade, even though a free trade deal avoided tariffs. The drag comes largely from new "non-tariff barriers" — the time-consuming paperwork businesses must now complete to import and export. Estimates of the precise impact vary widely, but the Office for Budget Responsibility has long assumed that trade in goods and services will be around 15% lower in the long term than it would otherwise have been. Smaller firms appear to have been hit harder than larger ones, while UK services exports have held up better than expected.

On migration, the end of free movement in January 2021 brought a sharp fall in EU net migration, while net migration from the rest of the world rose to record levels, driven mainly by work visas in health and care and by international students. Both EU and non-EU citizens now generally need work visas, with Irish citizens a notable exception.

On money, the UK stopped its regular contributions to the EU budget after the transition period, though it continued payments under the Brexit withdrawal settlement and later rejoined the Horizon science programme. On laws, the UK retained thousands of EU rules as "retained EU law" and has since changed only a portion of them, using its new freedom in areas such as tax.

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Travel and the new border systems

For travellers, the most visible change is that British passport holders can no longer use EU/EEA lanes at EU border crossings. Britons can still visit the EU as tourists for up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa, provided their passport has enough validity remaining, while EU citizens can stay in the UK for up to six months without a visa.

A bigger change was on the horizon at the time of writing. The EU was preparing its Entry/Exit System (EES), an automated database that registers non-EU travellers' names, travel documents, biometric data and entry and exit details, replacing manual passport stamping. Around six months after EES, the EU planned to introduce the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), requiring UK citizens to obtain clearance to visit some 30 European countries. As reported in early 2025, ETIAS clearance was expected to cost €7 and last up to three years or until the passport expires. Meanwhile, the UK introduced its own equivalent for EU citizens — the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), priced at £16 — from 2 April 2025, with Irish citizens exempt.

What it means going forward

Five years on, Brexit remains a live subject, especially as the UK and EU discuss resetting parts of their relationship. For travellers, the practical message is to plan ahead: passports need sufficient validity, the 90/180 rule applies, and new authorisations are coming on both sides of the Channel. If you want a plain-language summary of how the EU systems will work, our overview of ETIAS and EES sets out the essentials before you travel.