The UK saw the highest level of net migration on record last year, with numbers rising to 606,000.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show 1.2 million people moved to the UK and 557,000 left up to December 2022 - leaving 606,000 more people arriving that departing.
This is up from 504,000 in the 12 months to June last year and 488,000 in 2021. But the total is lower than sky-high estimates of between 700,000 and 1 million that had been floated in recent days.
Rishi Sunak said the figures were "too high" as he faced a Tory backlash over a string of broken promises on border controls.
The Tories used the 2010, 2015 and 2017 election manifestos to pledge to cut net migration to below 100,000.
The party abandoned the promise for the 2019 ballot, but committed to making sure "overall numbers come down".
Home Secretary Suella Braverman suggested reviving a Conservative pledge to reduce the number to the "tens of thousands" in September 2022 - but Mr Sunak has conspicuously not repeated this promise.
And despite his leadership pledge to slash the asylum backlog, separate Home Office figures show the number of people waiting for an initial decision rose to 172,758 from 166,261.
The number waiting more than six months has increased by 10,000 to 128,812.
Labour said the figures showed the Government had "no plan and no grip" on the issue.
The war in Ukraine, arrivals of Afghans and Hongkongers through Government schemes have fuelled a surge in net migration, as well as the end of Covid travel restrictions, according to the ONS.
The data shows most people arriving to the UK in 2022 were non-EU nationals (925,000), followed by EU (151,000) and British (88,000).
Numbers of non-EU arrivals for humanitarian reasons have risen from 9% in 2021 to 19%, while people coming to the UK to study fell from 47% to 39% over the same period.
The Government said this week it would strip some international students of the right to bring family members to the UK in a bid to drive numbers down.
From January 2024 those studying in universities below PhD level will be barred from bringing their dependents.
But the ONS said: "Students typically stay for shorter periods than other migrants and that the majority leave at the end of their study; the latest data shows that those who arrived for study reasons in 2021 are now starting to leave, driving an increase in total emigration from 454,000 in 2021 to 557,000 in 2022."
Bizarrely, Mr Sunak's first public appearance was on This Morning, where he told Alison Hammond and Craig Doyle that the numbers were "too high".
He denied it was "out of control", but said: "The numbers are too high, it's as simple as that. And I want to bring them down."
But Mr Sunak refused to put a figure on on what his ambitions are on net migration.
Asked whether Rishi Sunak would like to apologise for failing to slash the figures, his official spokesman said: "We are working to bring those numbers down.
"We've set out a significant package to do that just this week as well as all the work that goes alongside stopping the boats.
"It's also important to understand what sits beneath some of those numbers, 114,000 Ukrainians coming over for example, 52,000 British nationals from Hong Kong. We think that is something the public can be rightly proud of."
The spokesman added: "At the same time, we need to strike the right balance about supporting our economy with getting those numbers down, so we recognise that numbers up too high."
Measures to reduce the backlog of asylum cases in the UK "take time to bed in", Downing Street argued.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman failed to appear in the Commons for a grilling today - sending Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick instead to field questions from angry Tory right-wingers.
Mr Jenrick told MPs: "We expect net migration to fall to pre-pandemic levels in the medium term."
Conservative veteran Sir Edward Leigh said "Some people in the Treasury seem to think a good way to grow the economy is to fill the country up with more and more people, but this is bad for productivity and bad for British workers who are being undercut by mass migration from all over the world."
Tory MP Martin Vickers said: "The anger and frustration of my constituents has been focused on illegal migration up until now, but that anger and frustration will grow when they consider these legal migration figures.
"We're creating, roughly speaking, eight new parliamentary constituencies with this number and if that continues it's clearly unsustainable."
Downing Street slapped down Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick after he told MPs speeding up asylum decisions could act as a pull factor.
He told the Commons it was "not correct" that processing illegal migrants' claims faster would reduce arrivals and "in all likelihood it'll lead to an increase".
But the PM’s spokesman said: "What we are focusing on is reducing the numbers, tackling that backlog is the right approach.”
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the figures show the Conservatives have "no plan and no grip on immigration" - as she pointed to a 119% increase in work visas granted in the year to March 2023.
"Ministers have completely failed to tackle skills shortages, especially in health and social care, or to get people back into work after Covid," she said.
“Net migration should come down and we expect it to do so. Support we have rightly given to Ukrainians and HongKongers has unusually affected the figures this year.
"But that can’t disguise the fact that the Conservatives’ chaotic approach means that work visas are up 119 per cent, net migration is more than twice the level ministers were aiming for, and the asylum backlog is at a record high despite Rishi Sunak promising to clear it this year."
Labour said it would scrap rules meaning foreign workers can be paid less than Britons.
Companies where experts say there is a shortage of workers can pay foreigners 20% less than the going rate - meaning bosses have an incentive to recruit from overseas.
Oxford University’s Migration Observatory said net migration may not remain so high indefinitely.
Director Madeleine Sumption added: "These unusually high net migration levels do not have a single cause but result from several things happening at once - the war in Ukraine, a boom in international student recruitment and high demand for health and care workers.
"It is very difficult to predict future migration patterns, because surprising developments can disrupt them.
“For example, a few years ago, none of the forecasts suggested migration would rise above 500,000 - not least because they did not anticipate the war in Ukraine.”
Naomi Smith, chief executive of internationalist campaign group Best for Britain, said: "Immigration is good for our economy and our society and should be part of any effective economic plan alongside investment in skills.
“It's baffling that some demand that we cut immigration while our economy is still stunted by chronic labour shortages that Brexit has made worse.”
Tory Foreign Affairs Committee Alicia Kearns warned against "knee-jerk reactions on migration".
She said: "Students shouldn't be included in net migration figures. The soft power dividends as (an) academic superpower are significant.
"We've proudly offered refuge to Ukrainians & BNOs (British Nationals (Overseas)) and need to fill jobs wealth creators have made."
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