Ask which country has the most immigrants and the answer is simple: the United States, by a wide margin. Ask which country is the most immigrant nation and the answer changes entirely: it becomes the United Arab Emirates or Qatar, places where the foreign-born outnumber the native-born several times over. These are not competing answers to the same question. They are correct answers to two different questions, and conflating them is the single most common error in popular discussion of migration destinations. This article ranks the world’s biggest immigration destinations both ways, and explains why a dual framework, not a single ranking, is the only honest way to read the data.
The World’s Largest Immigrant Populations
Measured in absolute numbers, migrant destinations cluster heavily around a small set of large, wealthy economies.
Largest Immigrant Populations by Country, 2024
| Rank | Country | International Migrant Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 52 million |
| 2 | Germany | 17 million |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | 14 million |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 12 million |
| 5 | France | 9 million |
| 6 | Türkiye | 7.1 million |
| 7 | Italy | 6.6 million |
| — | Canada, Australia, Russian Federation, UAE, Spain | consistently top-10 destinations, 2015-2024, exact order shifts by year |
Source: UN DESA, International Migrant Stock 2024: Key facts and figures.
The concentration at the top is stark. The five largest destination countries alone host roughly a third of the entire world’s migrant population. The United States, on its own, accounts for about 17% of all international migrants globally, more than the next four countries on this list combined. That top-five list, unchanged in composition since the 2020 estimate, points to durable rather than volatile migration systems: established labor markets, existing diaspora communities and family networks that continue drawing new arrivals along the same well-worn corridors year after year.
Countries Where Immigrants Make Up the Largest Shares
Switch the metric from absolute count to percentage of resident population, and an almost entirely different set of countries appears at the top, mostly small, wealthy, and structurally dependent on imported labor.
Highest Immigrant Share of National Population
| Country | Immigrant Share of Population |
|---|---|
| Vatican City | ~100% (no native-born population) |
| United Arab Emirates | ~74-89%, depending on source and year |
| Qatar | ~76.7-78% |
| Kuwait | ~67-73% |
| Bahrain | ~52-55% |
| Luxembourg | ~47-51% |
| Singapore | ~43-46% |
| Oman | ~46.5% |
| Australia | ~28-31.5% |
| Canada | ~21-30% |
| United States | ~15-17% |
Note: exact figures differ across sources due to differing definitions (foreign-born vs. noncitizen population) and reference years spanning roughly 2017 to 2025; ranges reflect that genuine variation.
The gap between the two rankings is the whole story. The United States hosts more immigrants than any other country on Earth, yet by share of population it does not even approach the top twenty, because its total population base of roughly 340 million is so large that even 52 million migrants amounts to a modest fraction. The UAE and Qatar, by contrast, have such small native-born populations relative to their imported workforces that migrants form the clear majority of everyone living there.
Why Certain Countries Become Major Migration Destinations
Migration research points to a consistent, if overlapping, set of structural drivers behind why particular countries become major destinations rather than others:
- Labor demand and wage differentials. This is the dominant driver behind Gulf state migration, where economies built on construction, energy and hospitality recruit heavily from South and Southeast Asia, the Philippines and East Africa.
- The kafala system. Several Gulf states, including Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, operate a sponsorship-based labor framework that ties a foreign worker’s legal status to a specific employer, a structural feature that both enables the scale of labor recruitment seen in these countries and has drawn sustained criticism over worker rights.
- Political stability and rule of law, which draw both economic migrants and, distinctly, refugees and asylum seekers seeking safety rather than employment.
- Family and diaspora networks. Established migrant communities in the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom continue to draw new arrivals through family reunification pathways, reinforcing existing corridors over time.
- Geographic proximity and historical ties. Türkiye’s position as a major destination reflects both proximity to conflict zones, notably hosting a large Syrian refugee population, and its role as a transit and settlement point between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
- Financial and tourism hub status. Small European territories such as Monaco, Liechtenstein and Andorra post very high immigrant shares almost entirely because of their role as financial centers and their tiny native-born population bases, not labor migration in the Gulf sense.
The World’s Major Migration Hubs
Several regional systems dominate global immigration patterns, each shaped by a different combination of the drivers above:
- North America. The United States and Canada together form one of the world’s largest and most durable destination systems, built on a mix of labor migration, family reunification and, particularly in Canada’s case, points-based skilled migration programs.
- Europe. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain anchor a dense, interconnected European destination system shaped by historical colonial ties, post-war labor recruitment, and, more recently, EU freedom-of-movement rules and refugee inflows.
- Gulf states. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman form a distinct migration system built almost entirely around temporary labor migration under the kafala framework, producing the highest immigrant population shares in the world despite comparatively modest absolute numbers next to the US or Germany.
- Oceania. Australia (immigrant share around 28-31.5%) and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand rely on a mix of skilled migration programs and historical settler immigration, producing high immigrant shares among large, wealthy, English-speaking destinations outside North America and Europe.
- Emerging Asian hubs. Singapore stands out as the leading non-Middle Eastern destination by immigrant share, at roughly 43-46%, reflecting its role as a financial and logistics hub that recruits heavily across the region, notably from Malaysia, whose citizens make up the largest single migrant group in the country.
Who Lives in These Immigrant Populations?
The demographic profile of a destination country’s immigrant population differs sharply depending on which migration system it belongs to. In Europe and Northern America, migrant populations skew slightly female, roughly 52% female in Europe, reflecting family reunification, care-work migration and the more settled, balanced nature of these corridors. In Gulf Cooperation Council states, migrant populations skew heavily male, tied directly to the construction, energy and security sectors that dominate labor recruitment there. India, despite not being commonly thought of as an immigrant destination, also records a female-majority migrant population.
Age structure follows a similarly divergent pattern: Gulf state migrant populations are overwhelmingly concentrated in prime working ages, with comparatively few migrant children or elderly, since workers typically arrive without accompanying family and depart before or at retirement. European and North American migrant populations show a broader age spread, reflecting family-based migration, longer-term settlement and the presence of migrants across the full life course, from children to retirees.
Where Do Immigrants Come From?
Destination countries’ immigrant populations are typically drawn from a predictable set of origin countries shaped by geography, history and existing diaspora networks rather than randomly across the globe. The United States draws heavily from Mexico, alongside significant populations from India, China, the Philippines and other Latin American and Asian countries. Germany’s migrant population reflects both post-war labor recruitment from Türkiye and more recent refugee arrivals from Syria and Ukraine. Gulf states draw overwhelmingly from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), the Philippines and, for domestic and lower-wage sectors, parts of East Africa. Singapore’s largest single migrant group is Malaysian, accounting for 44% of its foreign-born population as of the most recent detailed estimate, up from 27% in 1990, even as the number of Malaysian migrants in Singapore grew roughly fivefold, from about 195,000 in 1990 to more than 950,000 by 2019.
How Destination Patterns Have Changed
The composition of the world’s top destination countries has been relatively stable at the very top, the same five countries have held the top five spots since at least 2020, but has shown more movement further down the ranking. Emerging destinations reflect newer economic and political dynamics: Gulf states have continued expanding their migrant workforces through the 2010s and into the 2020s even as some, like the UAE and Qatar, have seen their migrant population share modestly ease from earlier peaks as construction-driven demand has moderated. Meanwhile, conflict-driven arrivals have reshaped destination patterns more abruptly than economic migration typically does: Germany, Poland and other European countries absorbed large, rapid increases in Ukrainian migrants following the 2022 invasion, a shift visible in migrant stock data within a single reporting cycle rather than unfolding gradually over a decade, the way most labor migration trends do.
Measuring Immigrant Populations
Two related but distinct methodologies underlie most immigrant population statistics, and the choice between them can shift a country’s reported figures meaningfully:
- Foreign-born population counts people by their country of birth, regardless of their current citizenship status. This is the preferred and more internationally comparable measure, and the one used for most of the rankings above.
- Foreign citizen (or noncitizen) population counts people by their current legal citizenship, regardless of where they were born. A person born abroad who has since naturalized is foreign-born but not a foreign citizen; a person born in-country to foreign parents who has not acquired citizenship may be a foreign citizen despite being native-born, depending on the country’s citizenship laws.
Where foreign-born data is unavailable, the UN substitutes noncitizen estimates instead, which is one documented reason immigrant population figures for the same country can differ meaningfully across different data sources or reference years, alongside the more obvious factor of simply comparing figures from different years as though they were the same reference point.
Key Findings
- The United States hosts the world’s largest immigrant population by a wide margin, 52 million people, about 17% of all international migrants globally, more than the next four destination countries combined.
- By migrant share of population, the ranking flips entirely: the United Arab Emirates and Qatar lead the world, with migrants making up roughly three-quarters to nearly nine-tenths of their total resident population, depending on source and year.
- The top five destination countries by absolute numbers (US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, UK, France) have remained unchanged since the 2020 estimate, indicating durable rather than rapidly shifting migration systems.
- Gulf states rely on the kafala sponsorship system, which structurally ties migrant legal status to a specific employer and underpins the extremely high immigrant population shares recorded across Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
- Singapore is the leading non-Middle Eastern destination by immigrant share, roughly 43-46%, with Malaysian migrants alone making up 44% of its foreign-born population.
- Migrant populations in Gulf states skew heavily male and working-age; migrant populations in Europe and Northern America are closer to gender-balanced or slightly female-majority and span a broader age range.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Which country has the largest immigrant population?
The United States has the largest immigrant population of any country in absolute terms, about 52 million people as of 2024, roughly 17% of the entire global migrant stock.
2. Which country has the highest immigrant percentage?
Depending on the exact dataset and reference year, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar alternate as having the world’s highest immigrant share, with migrants making up roughly 75 to 89% of their total population.
3. Where do most international migrants live?
The top five destination countries, the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and France, together host roughly a third of the world’s entire migrant population.
4. Which countries attract the most immigrants relative to their size?
Small, wealthy economies structurally dependent on imported labor or serving as financial hubs, including the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Luxembourg and Singapore, attract the highest immigrant shares relative to their population.
5. Why does the US rank differently by total immigrants versus immigrant share?
Because the US has a very large overall population, roughly 340 million, even its 52 million immigrants amount to only about 15 to 17% of the total, far below the shares seen in small countries or Gulf states with much smaller native-born populations.
6. What is the kafala system?
The kafala system is a sponsorship-based labor framework used across several Gulf states that ties a foreign worker’s legal residency status to a specific employer, a structural feature underlying the extremely high migrant population shares recorded in Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
7. Which non-Gulf country has the highest immigrant share?
Singapore leads non-Middle Eastern destinations, with immigrants making up roughly 43 to 46% of its population, followed by Australia at around 28 to 31.5%.
8. Where do most immigrants in Gulf states come from?
Gulf state immigrant populations are drawn overwhelmingly from South Asia, particularly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, along with the Philippines and parts of East Africa.
9. Is foreign-born the same as immigrant?
In most usage, yes, though technically foreign-born measures place of birth while immigrant is a broader term. The two figures can diverge from a country’s foreign citizen or noncitizen count, since a naturalized former immigrant remains foreign-born but is no longer a foreign citizen.
10. Have immigrant destination rankings changed recently?
The top five destinations by absolute numbers have been stable since at least 2020, but conflict-driven arrivals, particularly from Ukraine after 2022, have produced rapid, visible shifts in specific European destination countries within a single reporting cycle.
Sources
- United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2024: Key facts and figures, 2025
- Migration Policy Institute, “Top 25 Countries with the Most International Migrants and Highest Migrant Share of the Total Population, 1960-2024”
- Migration Policy Institute, “Top Statistics on Global Migration and Migrants,” 2025
- Visual Capitalist, “Mapped: Countries With the Highest Share of International Migrants,” June 2025
- U.S. News & World Report / Migration Policy Institute, “The 15 Countries Most Populated by Migrants,” 2023
- The Conversation, “Which countries have the most immigrants?” citing UN and national census data
- Malay Mail / The Straits Times, citing UN DESA data on Malaysian migrants in Singapore
