A long and expensive visa route for immigrants has been called racist after analysis showed most applicants who feel forced to go through it are people of colour.

The “10-year route” visa is used by hundreds of thousands of people who are not eligible for other immigration schemes because of a lack of income or professional qualifications. Many work in low-paid jobs, such as cleaning or care work. Other common routes to settlement in the UK take five years.

According to freedom of information data obtained by the charity Ramfel, there are 218,110 people on the 10-year route.

Guardian analysis of Home Office data showed that all but one country in the top 10 nationalities who felt forced to use this route were those with predominantly minority ethnic populations. The top five were Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Ghana and Bangladesh. Overall, 86% using the route were from Asian or African countries, while 6% were from Europe.

People seeking to gain a visa via the 10-year route must renew their leave to remain with the Home Office every 30 months, meaning four renewals. The fee for each renewal is £3,850. The Home Office can grant a fee waiver but many requests are refused.

According to a 2023 report on the 10-year route by the legal advice and support service Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU), the thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research and the charity Praxis, the most common way of covering the fees was to borrow money, leaving many people in debt and struggling to pay for basic living costs.

A 41-year-old woman from Ghana said she was struggling with the 10-year route. She has a British child, who was born in 2017, and was granted leave on the 10-year route in 2018 after applying. But she was several weeks late in applying to renew her leave in March this year and has become an overstayer awaiting a new decision from the Home Office.

Because of her late application, she has lost the years accrued and has to restart the 10-year route from day one. “This immigration route is brutal. It makes me feel like I’m in a prison. I want to go to university and qualify as a nurse but I can’t do that until my immigration status is sorted out. The government should at least change this route to five years, not 10,” she said.

A GMIAU spokesperson said: “These numbers confirm what people on the 10-year route already know: it is a racist policy. People are being driven into debt, forced to choose between paying thousands of pounds in visa fees to keep their legal status and keeping their families fed and warm.

“Ten years is far too long for anyone to wait to settle. The route must be scrapped. A good place to start would be to cap all routes to settlement at five years.”

Nick Beales, of Ramfel, said: “The 10-year route is an enduring legacy of the hostile environment. Like many other Conservative policies from this period, the racist intent is clear, with African and south Asian nationals far more likely to be placed on this arduous and often brutal route towards securing permanent immigration status.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “In cases where a family does not qualify for a five-year route, but where refusal would breach obligations under the European convention on human rights, the Home Office places them on a 10-year route. Neither the race, ethnicity, nor nationality of an applicant is a factor in the decision to place individuals on this route.

“We encourage all individuals to apply for any visa renewals prior to their leave to remain ending in the UK.”