Britain handed out residence permits to non-EU migrants at the rate of one every 36 seconds last year.
Officials allowed 865,894 people from outside the EU to live here – a quarter of the permits issued across Europe and the most granted by any one nation.
The figure was up 52 per cent on the 570,000 total recorded two years ago.
The number of non-EU migrants who gained residence permits in the UK rose by more than 50% last year
The figures were published by the EU’s statistics arm Eurostat ahead of the release of a new set of UK migration statistics next week. The last survey showed net migration – the difference between those arriving minus those leaving – was 246,000 in the year to March. The Government wants to cut that to below 100,000 – a target backed by Theresa May.
Alp Mehmet, of the think-tank MigrationWatch UK, said: ‘Assuming a good many people stay in the country indefinitely, this is another damning indication of the levels of migration that are taking place.
‘This is why we have the pressure we do on public services.
‘The consequence is people will need homes, their children will need school places, and it will put more demand on public services.’ Tim Loughton, a Conservative member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: ‘The Government must begin to get a grip on migration.
The UK remains a very attractive place for people from outside the EU to come but given the scale of the numbers we need to make doubly sure that the right people are coming to the country with the right skills.’
Britain topped the residence permits league table ahead of Poland with 586,000, Germany with 505,000 and France with 235,000, according to Eurostat.
The UK was the main destination in Europe for non-EU citizens enrolling in education, handing out 365,455 study visas – 53 per cent of all those given in the 28-nation bloc. Another 117,076 came here for work and 89,341 for family reasons.
Residence permits allow non-EU nationals to stay in a country legally. But because Britain does not have an official residence permit system, Eurostat uses UK visas as the nearest comparison – including work, study and family visas, but excluding visitors.
Home Office officials point out that visas do not indicate an individual wishes to stay in Britain – only how long they are given.
This covers those who intend to reside for a few weeks to those arrivals coming for several years.
Most EU countries in the border-free Schengen zone, which Britain opted out of, usually issue permits for long-term residency.
The Eurostat figures showed Britain issued the fifth highest number of visas by population – 13.2 per thousand people in 2016. Malta (20.6), Cyprus (19.9), Poland (15.4) and Sweden (14.8) were higher.
Twenty-one per cent of permits handed out by Britain were given to US citizens – 183,867 – while 122,075 went to Indian nationals and 103,248 were given to Chinese.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The UK does not issue residence permits so these figures cannot be accurately compared.’