Countries With the Most Immigrants (2025)

Immigration discussions focus almost exclusively on absolute numbers — how many people crossed a border in a given year. The more revealing metric is the immigrant share of total population: what proportion of everyone living in a country was born somewhere else. By that measure, the ranking looks almost nothing like the headline version. The top countries are not Germany, the UK, or the United States. They are Gulf states where foreign nationals outnumber citizens by ratios of nine to one, followed by small wealthy European financial centers, and then the traditional settler nations of the Anglosphere. Each model represents a fundamentally different relationship between the receiving country and the people it imports — with radically different outcomes for those people.

As of the 2024 UN DESA International Migrant Stock report, the world had approximately 304 million international migrants — people living outside their country of birth — representing about 3.7% of the global population.

How This Ranking Is Measured

Immigrant share of population is the percentage of a country's total population that was born in a different country. This is distinct from: the number of foreign nationals (citizenship-based), the number of recent arrivals (flow rather than stock), and the number of refugees (a subset of migrants).

Data come from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) International Migrant Stock 2024 dataset, which synthesizes national census data, population registers, and administrative records. For Gulf states, where census data is comprehensive, figures are highly reliable. For countries with large informal migrant populations (South Africa, India, Thailand), figures are estimates with wider uncertainty bands.

Source: UN DESA, International Migrant Stock 2024 — un.org/development/desa/pd

Top 20 Countries by Immigrant Share of Population (2025)

Rank	Country	Immigrant Share	Foreign-Born Population	Total Population
1	UAE	88%	9,200,000	10,400,000
2	Qatar	78%	2,400,000	3,100,000
3	Kuwait	73%	3,200,000	4,400,000
4	Bahrain	54%	750,000	1,783,000
5	Luxembourg	47%	320,000	680,000
6	Singapore	43%	2,500,000	5,920,000
7	Switzerland	30%	2,700,000	8,800,000
8	Australia	30%	8,100,000	26,500,000
9	New Zealand	29%	1,400,000	5,100,000
10	Canada	23%	8,600,000	38,200,000
11	Israel	23%	2,100,000	9,600,000
12	Sweden	20%	2,100,000	10,400,000
13	Austria	19%	1,780,000	9,100,000
14	Ireland	18%	950,000	5,100,000
15	Germany	18%	15,200,000	84,400,000
16	Norway	18%	990,000	5,500,000
17	Belgium	17%	2,000,000	11,600,000
18	USA	15%	50,600,000	335,000,000
19	Netherlands	15%	2,700,000	17,900,000
20	Denmark	14%	840,000	5,900,000

Sources: UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024; national statistics offices.

Source: UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024; OECD International Migration Outlook 2024.

Where this data comes from

All immigrant-share data comes from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) International Migrant Stock 2024 report, the authoritative international source for migration statistics. UN DESA synthesizes national census data, population registers, and administrative records from countries. For wealthy countries with comprehensive data collection systems (Gulf states, OECD nations, Singapore), figures are highly reliable. For countries with large informal migrant populations (South Africa, India, Thailand), figures are estimates with wider uncertainty bands. A key limitation: definitions of "immigrant" vary slightly across countries. Some nations count only long-term residents; others include temporary workers. The UN figures attempt to standardise to "born outside the country" regardless of migration category, but residual methodological differences exist.

Historical Context: How Migration Became Global Infrastructure

International migration at scale is not a new phenomenon, but its character has changed dramatically across four distinct eras.

The colonial era (1500–1900) produced forced and semi-forced migration on a massive scale: the transatlantic slave trade (an estimated 12 million enslaved Africans transported to the Americas), indentured labor systems that moved Indian and Chinese workers across British and Dutch colonial territories, and settler colonialism that relocated European populations to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa. Much of what we now call "traditional immigration countries" was built on these movements.

The industrial era (1850–1930) produced the largest voluntary migration wave in history: approximately 55 million Europeans emigrated, primarily to the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Australia. The USA received approximately 30 million immigrants between 1880 and 1924, transforming from a predominantly British-origin country to a multi-ethnic society. This movement was largely unrestricted until the US Immigration Act of 1924 imposed national-origin quotas.

The post-WWII era (1945–1990) introduced the modern concept of refugee protection (1951 Refugee Convention), the managed guest-worker systems of Western Europe (Germany's Gastarbeiter program bringing Turkish workers, France's similar program importing North African labor), and the Gulf states' kafala labor import model. It also saw the first large-scale immigration from former colonies to imperial metropoles — Caribbean and South Asian immigration to the UK, Algerian immigration to France, Indonesian immigration to the Netherlands.

The contemporary era (1990–present) is characterized by three parallel movements: South-to-North migration driven by income differentials and political instability; intra-EU mobility following EU enlargement (approximately 1 million Eastern Europeans moved to the UK and Ireland after 2004 EU enlargement); and the acceleration of high-skilled international labor mobility for professionals in technology, finance, and healthcare. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine produced the largest European refugee movement since WWII — approximately 6 million Ukrainians displaced to Western Europe.

Source: OECD, "International Migration Outlook 2024" — oecd.org/migration/international-migration-outlook-1999124x.htm

Why Migration Shares Matter: The Economic Stakes

Migration share matters economically because labor is the input in every production process. Countries with aging native-born populations and low birth rates face structural workforce shortages that immigration can partially offset. The arithmetic is simple: if a country's native-born population of working age is shrinking by 1% annually and immigration adds 0.5% of working-age people per year, the net decline is halved.

The economic contribution of immigrants is well-documented in aggregate. OECD analysis across member countries consistently finds that immigrants contribute net positives to fiscal systems in the long run — they pay more in taxes and contributions than they receive in benefits, particularly when they are working age at arrival. The short-term picture is more mixed: new arrivals often require language training, credential recognition, housing support, and healthcare, generating net costs in their initial years.

The distribution of gains matters. High-skill immigrants tend to fill labor market gaps and compete with domestic workers primarily at salary levels above median. Lower-skill immigrants concentrate in sectors (agriculture, hospitality, care, construction) with labor shortages and limited domestic supply. Both patterns are generally complementary to native-born workers rather than substitutive — though workers in the same sector at the same skill level can face wage competition.

The Gulf Model: Importing an Economy

The UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait have constructed economies that are functionally impossible without mass immigration. The Emirati national population of approximately 600,000 represents 6% of the UAE's total population. The other 9.2 million residents are foreign nationals — the largest foreign-national majority of any country with a functioning economy.

This structure emerged from the intersection of two facts: vast oil and gas revenues generating nearly unlimited purchasing power, and tiny indigenous populations without the human capital to staff the economy being built. Beginning in the 1950s and accelerating through the 1970s and 1980s, Gulf states recruited workers systematically from South and Southeast Asia — initially for construction (Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis), then for services (Filipinos, Indonesians), and finally for professional and management roles (Westerners, Jordanians, Lebanese).

The workforce composition of the UAE reflects these layers. Indians form the largest single nationality at approximately 3 million, concentrated across construction, trade, IT, and professional services. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis provide much of the blue-collar workforce. Filipinos dominate hospitality, healthcare, and domestic service. Europeans, Americans, and Australians fill senior management, finance, and specialist technical roles. Emirati nationals concentrate in government positions and senior roles in state-owned enterprises, protected by nationalization policies (Emiratisation) that require minimum Emirati percentages in private sector payrolls.

What makes the Gulf model structurally distinct from every other high-immigration context is the near-total absence of any pathway to citizenship. A South Asian worker who has lived in Dubai for 30 years, raised children in Dubai, and built a career in Dubai has no more legal claim to residency rights than on the day of arrival. Visa status is tied to employment; losing a job means losing the right to remain. This creates profound asymmetry between the economic contribution of immigrants to Gulf states and the legal protections those states extend in return.

The kafala (sponsorship) system formalizes this asymmetry. Workers' legal status depends on their employer-sponsor, who controls residency and travel documents. Workers wishing to change employer must typically obtain their sponsor's permission. Workers who leave employers before contract completion can be charged with "absconding." Employers who confiscate passports — illegal but common — face minimal enforcement consequences. The result is a coercive labor market where workers have limited ability to enforce contracts or exit exploitative situations.

Qatar's 2022 FIFA World Cup brought international scrutiny to these conditions. A Guardian investigation documented approximately 6,500 deaths among Nepali and South Asian migrant workers in Qatar between 2010 and 2021, though Qatar disputed the attribution of those deaths to workplace conditions. Partial reforms followed: Qatar abolished the exit permit requirement in 2020 (workers can now leave the country without employer permission), introduced a minimum wage (QAR 1,000/month, approximately $275), and established a Workers' Support Fund. These are meaningful but incremental changes to a system that remains fundamentally exploitative.

Source: The Guardian, "6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded" (2021) — theguardian.com; ILO, Gulf Labour Standards reports.

Singapore: The Managed Immigration State

Singapore's 43% immigrant share is the result of the most deliberately engineered immigration system in the world — one that treats migration not as a social policy but as an economic precision instrument.

The city-state uses four distinct visa categories that function as a tiered sorting system. The Employment Pass (minimum monthly salary S$5,000 in 2025, rising to S$10,500 for financial sector roles) admits high-skill professionals who compete directly for permanent residency and citizenship after several years. The S Pass admits mid-skill workers (minimum S$3,150/month) in sectors with documented shortages. The Work Permit system brings in construction workers, domestic helpers, and marine sector workers under sector-specific quotas and dependency ratios that limit how many each employer can hire. The Personalised Employment Pass is a rare, non-employer-tied visa for top global talent.

The result is a population stratified by income and origin in ways that are rarely discussed but pervasive. Filipino domestic workers (approximately 200,000) and Bangladeshi construction workers live under entirely different legal and social conditions than Indian software engineers or British financial analysts — despite all being counted in the same immigrant share statistic.

Singapore justifies this hierarchy on economic grounds: different sectors have different market rates, and the immigration system reflects those rates. The result is an economy that remains internationally competitive while maintaining social cohesion — by which Singapore means preventing the emergence of large unassimilated communities that might create political or social tensions.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities in this system. An April 2020 outbreak in worker dormitories — which housed over 300,000 migrant workers in conditions that turned out to be ideal for virus transmission — generated over 20,000 cases concentrated almost entirely among low-wage workers. The outbreak revealed the invisibility of this population within Singapore's public health planning. Singapore subsequently invested significantly in dormitory conditions and healthcare access for migrant workers, but the fundamental structure remained unchanged.

Traditional Immigration Nations: Australia, Canada, New Zealand

Australia, Canada, and New Zealand represent a model of high immigration built on permanent settlement, eventual citizenship, and explicit national identity framing around immigrant welcome — a fundamentally different philosophy from the Gulf or Singapore models.

Australia's immigration programme has been the most studied. The points-based system (introduced in 1973, refined repeatedly) selects immigrants based on age, English proficiency, skills, qualifications, and employer sponsorship. The programme has three main streams: skilled migration (the largest), family reunion, and humanitarian. Australia admitted approximately 185,000 permanent migrants in 2023–24.

The Australian economic case for immigration has been supported by decades of data. Australia avoided recession for 28 consecutive years between 1991 and 2020 — an unprecedented run in modern economic history — with immigration-fuelled population growth consistently identified as a structural contributor to domestic demand. The 2020 COVID-19 disruption broke the streak but immigration-driven growth resumed quickly afterward.

The social contract in Australia is explicit: permanent residents have near-identical rights to citizens (except voting), access to Medicare, and a clear pathway to citizenship after four years of permanent residency. This distinguishes Australian immigration from both Gulf states (no pathway) and Europe (variable and often difficult pathways). The clarity of the contract is arguably a feature, not a bug — immigrants who know they can belong tend to invest in belonging.

Canada has been the most ambitious immigration nation among OECD countries in recent years, targeting 485,000 permanent residents in 2024 — equivalent to approximately 1.2% of the Canadian population in a single year. Canada's system combines Express Entry (points-based selection of skilled workers), Provincial Nominee Programs (provinces select workers for specific regional needs), family sponsorship, and humanitarian programs.

Canada's immigration ambition reflects explicit demographic reasoning: with fertility around 1.4 and a rapidly aging population, Canada's pension and healthcare systems require an influx of young workers to remain solvent. The arithmetic of Canadian immigration policy is largely demographic — calculating how many working-age immigrants per year are required to maintain acceptable dependency ratios through the 2040s.

The housing cost consequence has been significant. Toronto and Vancouver have seen property prices rise to among the world's highest relative to local incomes — a phenomenon driven by multiple factors including immigration-related population growth, constrained housing supply, and low interest rates. The combination has created housing affordability crises that have become politically central. Canada's 2024 temporary reduction in immigration targets to address housing pressure represented the first reversal of the ambitious immigration strategy since it was launched.

Source: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), 2024 Annual Report — canada.ca; OECD International Migration Outlook 2024.

Germany: Europe's Immigration Powerhouse

Germany's 15.2 million foreign-born residents constitute the third largest absolute immigrant population in the world, after the USA and Saudi Arabia. Germany's position reflects its status as Europe's largest economy and its evolution from a country that explicitly denied being an immigration country (official policy until the early 2000s) to one that actively recruits international talent.

The first wave of mass immigration to Germany was the Gastarbeiter (guest worker) system of the 1960s and 1970s. Germany recruited Turkish, Yugoslav, Greek, Italian, and Portuguese workers for its booming industrial economy, operating on the explicit assumption that workers would leave when the economic cycle turned. They didn't. The 3 million Turkish-origin residents of Germany today are largely descended from these workers, representing Germany's largest single non-German-origin community and a case study in the gap between "temporary labor migration" and actual population outcomes.

The second wave was intra-EU migration following EU enlargement in 2004 (adding Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and others) and 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria). An estimated 3.5 million Romanians and 1.5 million Poles live in Germany — the largest intra-EU migration flows. These are EU citizens with full rights of residence and no integration barriers in theory, though language and labor market barriers remain.

The third wave began with the 2015 "refugee summer" — approximately 890,000 asylum applications to Germany in 2015–2016, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan, and Eritrea. Germany's integration experience with this wave has been mixed: significant successes in language training and labor market integration for younger, more educated refugees; persistent challenges for older arrivals and those from more conservative social backgrounds. As of 2025, approximately 1.5 million of the Syrian refugee cohort remain in Germany.

The fourth wave was Ukrainian: approximately 1.1 million Ukrainians are registered in Germany as of 2025 under the EU Temporary Protection Directive, with full work and welfare rights. Ukrainian refugees are demographically unusual — predominantly female, educated, with children — reflecting men's requirement to remain in Ukraine under mobilization laws.

Germany's 2022 Skilled Immigration Act (Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz) and 2024 citizenship reform (allowing dual citizenship for the first time) represent a formal acknowledgment that Germany is an immigration country and needs to compete globally for talent. The citizenship reform is expected to produce a significant surge in naturalizations — many long-term residents had previously been deterred by the requirement to give up their original citizenship.

Source: German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Annual Report 2024 — bamf.de

Israel: The Law of Return as Immigration Policy

Israel's 23% immigrant share reflects one of the world's most distinctive immigration systems: the Law of Return (1950), which grants every Jewish person worldwide the right to immigrate to Israel and receive citizenship. Israel's immigrant population is therefore not recruited based on labor market needs or selected on points systems — it is defined by religious and ethnic identity.

The result is a country built in large part by successive immigration waves: European Holocaust survivors and displaced persons in the late 1940s; Mizrahi Jews from Arab countries expelled or fleeing persecution in the 1950s–1960s; Soviet Jews (approximately 1 million) following the USSR's collapse in 1990–1991; and ongoing but smaller flows from Ethiopia, France, and elsewhere.

Each wave has shaped Israeli society differently. Soviet-era immigrants brought high levels of education and professional qualifications that contributed substantially to Israel's high-technology economy — Israel's per-capita startup density is among the world's highest, and Russian-speaking immigrants were disproportionately represented in the engineers and scientists who built it. Ethiopian immigrants have faced greater integration challenges — arriving largely without formal education or Hebrew, from a subsistence agricultural context — and experience higher rates of poverty and discrimination.

The Law of Return also creates a category of "non-Jewish immigrant" — primarily family members of Jewish immigrants who are not themselves Jewish under halakhic law. This group numbers in the hundreds of thousands and exists in a complex legal and social space, with full Israeli citizenship but without the religious identity of the majority.

Source: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Immigration Statistics 2024 — cbs.gov.il

The USA: Largest Absolute Population, Not the Highest Share

The United States' 50.6 million foreign-born residents represent the largest absolute immigrant population in the world — but at 15% of the total population, the USA ranks 18th by share. The dilution effect of 335 million total residents places the US in the middle of the high-income-country range despite an immigrant population that exceeds the total population of most countries.

American immigration history is both the template for modern immigration countries and a case study in political volatility. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Celler Act) dismantled the national-origin quota system of 1924 and created the framework — family reunification, employment-based immigration, and refugee/humanitarian categories — that still governs US immigration policy. The act's authors expected modest changes; they generated the transformation of the US immigrant population from predominantly European to predominantly Latin American and Asian.

The unauthorized immigrant population — estimated at 10–11 million as of 2024 — is a structural feature of the US system rather than an anomaly. The gap between labor market demand (particularly in agriculture, construction, and hospitality) and authorized immigration supply (constrained by per-country numerical limits that create wait times of decades for nationals of high-demand countries like Mexico, India, and China) created conditions where unauthorized migration was the only available response to real economic needs.

The political polarization around immigration in the United States since approximately 2015 represents a challenge to the bipartisan consensus that previously governed immigration policy. Proposals ranging from significant expansion of legal immigration pathways to mass deportation of unauthorized residents reflect a genuine political divide about what immigration is for — economic benefit maximization, family reunification, refugee protection, or national cultural preservation — that has not been resolved.

Source: Migration Policy Institute, US Immigration Statistics 2024 — migrationpolicy.org

Trends Reshaping Migration: 2025 and Beyond

Climate migration is transitioning from prediction to present reality. The World Bank's 2021 Groundswell report estimated that 216 million people could be internal climate migrants by 2050 — forced to move within their own countries due to drought, flooding, or extreme heat. International climate migration is already measurable: Pacific island nations are planning managed relocations; Sahel droughts are pushing populations north; sea-level rise threatens Bangladesh's low-lying coastal regions. The international legal framework for climate migrants is essentially nonexistent — the 1951 Refugee Convention does not cover climate displacement.

Digital nomadism and remote work visas represent a new migration category. Over 60 countries had introduced specific digital nomad or remote worker visas by 2025, allowing workers employed by companies in other countries to live legally as residents. This category is small in absolute terms — estimated 35–40 million people globally — but growing rapidly and concentrating in specific destinations (Portugal, Estonia, Thailand, Colombia).

The Ukraine effect on European demographic projections is still playing out. The 1.1 million Ukrainians in Germany, 1.5 million in Poland, and 500,000+ in other EU countries represent a large-scale, educated, relatively young population inflow at a moment of European demographic concern. The long-term retention rate — how many return to Ukraine if and when the war ends — will determine whether this constitutes a permanent demographic shift or a temporary displacement.

Brain circulation rather than brain drain is increasingly the pattern for high-skill international migration. Indian IT professionals who trained in US companies and returned to India, Chinese scientists who studied in the US and returned to build Chinese research institutions, Brazilian engineers who gained experience in Germany and returned — these flows now run in multiple directions simultaneously, creating knowledge networks rather than simple talent transfers from poor to rich countries.

Source: World Bank, Groundswell Report 2021 — openknowledge.worldbank.org; OECD International Migration Outlook 2024.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is the difference between an immigrant and an expat?
A: Legally and statistically, there is no difference. Both describe persons living outside their birth country. "Expat" culturally applies to skilled or wealthy migrants from wealthy countries working abroad; "immigrant" to migrants from developing countries. The distinction is sociological, not legal — statistics agencies count both in foreign-born population figures.

Q: Which country has the most immigrants in absolute numbers?
A: The United States, with 50.6 million foreign-born residents — more than Spain or South Korea's total population. Germany has Europe's largest absolute immigrant population at 15.2 million. Saudi Arabia has an estimated 13 million foreign-born residents, driven by Gulf labour models similar to the UAE.

Q: Do countries with high immigration have better economic growth?
A: Research consensus supports a positive relationship between immigration and economic growth. Immigrants increase labour supply, fill skills gaps, and contribute disproportionately to entrepreneurship and innovation. Distributional effects are uneven — workers in direct competition can face wage pressure, and rapid immigration strains housing and public services short-term. Long-run fiscal effects for most OECD countries are positive: immigrants contribute more in taxes and contributions over lifetimes than they draw in services.

Q: Can migrants in Gulf states become citizens?
A: Naturalisation in Gulf states is extremely rare, occurring only through individual ruling-family decree. No standard legal pathway exists for migrant workers to obtain UAE, Qatar, or Kuwait citizenship regardless of residence length. This fundamentally distinguishes the Gulf model from traditional immigration nations — a 30-year Dubai resident has no citizenship claim.

Q: Why is Luxembourg at 47% immigrant share?
A: Luxembourg's high immigrant share reflects its status as the EU's richest country by GDP per capita (financial services, EU institutions) in small area. Labour market draws workers from France, Belgium, Germany, and Portugal. Approximately 175,000 cross-border commuters are not counted as residents; permanent movers form the 47% foreign-born share. Luxembourg is essentially a city-state economy requiring immigration.

Q: How does immigration affect cultural identity?
A: The question is genuinely contested and context-dependent. Countries with clear citizenship pathways and multicultural frameworks (Canada, Australia) show better integration outcomes than those with exclusionary citizenship and social marginalization. Second-generation immigrants in countries with clear integration pathways typically perform at or above native-born averages in education and labour market outcomes.

Sources

• UN DESA, International Migrant Stock 2024 — un.org/development/desa/pd
• OECD, International Migration Outlook 2024 — oecd.org
• IOM, World Migration Report 2024 — worldmigrationreport.iom.int
• Migration Policy Institute — migrationpolicy.org
• German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) — bamf.de
• World Bank, Groundswell Report 2021 — openknowledge.worldbank.org
• The Guardian, Qatar migrant worker investigation 2021 — theguardian.com

The Takeaway

The countries with the highest immigrant shares represent three fundamentally different models of immigration: the Gulf states' temporary-labor machine (no citizenship, maximum economic extraction, minimum worker rights), the managed-meritocracy model of Singapore (tiered rights based on economic value), and the settler-nation model of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand (permanent settlement, citizenship pathway, explicit national identity built around welcome). The USA is in a category of its own — the world's largest absolute immigrant destination, currently unable to agree on what it wants immigration to be. As demographic aging reduces native-born workforces across the developed world and climate change adds new migration pressures, these different models will be tested. The countries that build clear, humane, economically rational immigration systems now will be better positioned for the workforce competition of the 2030s and 2040s.

Related Reading

• Most Densely Populated Countries in the World (2025)
• Countries With the Youngest Populations (2025)
• Countries With the Oldest Populations (2025)
• Most Expensive Countries to Live In (2025)
• How Demographics Will Reshape the Global Economy