TOP 10 Origin Countries by Number of Emigrants Abroad (2025)
Emigration is one of the most visible signs of how people, skills and families move across borders. The United Nations estimates that by mid-2024 there were about 304 million international migrants worldwide – people living in a country other than the one in which they were born. For origin countries, this “emigrant stock” represents students, workers, refugees and long-settled communities that together form a global diaspora.
Looking at the latest revision of the International Migrant Stock dataset, India stands out clearly as the single largest country of origin, followed by several other populous or conflict-affected states. The ranking below uses UN DESA’s 2024 estimates as an empirical anchor and treats them as an indicative “Top 10 origin countries by number of citizens living abroad around 2025”.
Table 1. Emigrants abroad, TOP 10 origin countries (mid-2020s snapshot)
Stock of emigrants • millions of peopleDefinition. “Emigrants abroad” are people counted as international migrants whose country of origin is listed as the country in question, regardless of citizenship. Figures below are rounded to one decimal place and refer to the estimated number of people born in each country but living elsewhere.
| Rank | Origin country | Emigrants abroad (millions, ≈2024) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | India | 17.9 |
| 2 | Mexico | 11.2 |
| 3 | Russian Federation | 10.8 |
| 4 | China | 10.5 |
| 5 | Syrian Arab Republic | 8.5 |
| 6 | Bangladesh | 7.4 |
| 7 | Pakistan | 6.3 |
| 8 | Ukraine | 6.1 |
| 9 | Philippines | 6.1 |
| 10 | Afghanistan | 5.9 |
Notes. Values combine UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024 with secondary summaries that highlight the ten largest emigrant-origin countries and approximate migrant counts. They are rounded and should be interpreted as indicative orders of magnitude rather than precise point estimates for a single day.
This ranking mixes very different migration stories. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines are primarily labour-exporting economies with long-standing channels to the Gulf states, North America and Europe. Mexico’s diaspora has grown over decades of labour migration and family reunification with the United States. Russia and Ukraine reflect complex patterns of post-Soviet mobility combined with more recent political and security shocks. Syria and Afghanistan, by contrast, appear in the Top 10 largely because of forced displacement and protracted conflict.
For policymakers, the size of a country’s diaspora matters because it is tied to remittance inflows, skills circulation and evolving political links with destination countries. Businesses see the same map as a network of potential consumer markets and talent pools. But headline numbers alone are only a starting point: to understand what these millions of emigrants mean in practice, we also need to see where they go and how those corridors are structured.
Where do the largest emigrant communities live?
Global migration is highly concentrated along a limited number of corridors. Our everyday mental image of emigration is often “Latin America to the United States” or “South Asia to the Gulf”, and the data confirm that stereotype: a relatively small set of destination countries hosts a very large share of the world’s emigrants. At the same time, most migrants do not move across oceans – they stay within their own broader region, often in neighbouring states with stronger labour markets or greater political stability.
UN DESA’s bilateral migrant-stock tables and interactive tools from the World Migration Report and Migration Policy Institute show, for example, that most Indian-born emigrants live in the Gulf, North America, the United Kingdom and a few other Commonwealth countries; most Mexican emigrants live in the United States; and large shares of Russian and Ukrainian emigrants remain within Europe and Central Asia. For conflict-affected countries such as Syria and Afghanistan, nearby states (Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan, Iran) carry much of the displacement burden.
Table 2. Main destination countries for the largest diasporas
Up to 3 columns • mobile-friendly layoutReading the table. For four of the largest origin countries in Table 1, the table summarises their most important destination countries (by migrant headcount) and groups those destinations by broad region. It does not cover every corridor, but highlights where a substantial share of each diaspora lives.
| Origin country | Top destination countries (illustrative list) | Dominant destination regions |
|---|---|---|
| India | United Arab Emirates, United States, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Canada, Kuwait, Oman, Australia | Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), North America, Western Europe, Oceania |
| Mexico | United States (by far the largest corridor), Canada, Spain, Germany | North America, Western Europe |
| Russian Federation | Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany, Belarus, United States, Israel | Eastern Europe & Central Asia, Western Europe, Middle East & North America |
| Syrian Arab Republic | Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Germany, Sweden | Neighbouring Middle East, European Union & Nordic countries |
Notes. Destination lists are illustrative and based on UN DESA bilateral migrant-stock matrices and secondary visualisations (interactive maps and corridor charts). Exact rankings may change between revisions, but the same destination clusters – Gulf, North America, Western Europe and regional neighbours – account for a large share of emigrants from each origin.
Patterns behind the numbers: labour, family and forced displacement
1. India – a diversified “super-diaspora”. India’s nearly 18 million emigrants are spread across every continent, but the largest groups are concentrated in the Gulf states, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. The Gulf corridors are dominated by temporary and circular labour migration in construction, services and domestic work; the North American and European corridors have a much higher share of students and high-skilled professionals. Together they create a “super-diaspora” that sends the world’s largest remittance flows back to India and acts as a bridge for trade, IT services and investment.
2. Mexico – a corridor almost synonymous with the United States. For Mexico, emigration is overwhelmingly shaped by geography and economic integration. The United States hosts the vast majority of Mexican-born emigrants – from farm workers and construction labourers to long-settled families in cities across the country. Secondary destinations such as Canada and Spain are growing but still small by comparison. This concentration means that changes in U.S. labour markets, border policies or regularisation schemes can immediately affect millions of Mexican families.
3. Russia and Ukraine – regional mobility and geopolitical shockwaves. The Russian Federation has long had large emigrant communities in former Soviet republics and in Germany, while Ukraine’s diaspora has grown especially fast since 2014, and again after the 2022 full-scale invasion. Many Ukrainians moved first to neighbouring Poland and other EU states, either as workers or under temporary protection schemes, before redistributing across Europe. For both countries, emigration is closely intertwined with political transition, demographic ageing and – in Ukraine’s case – war-related displacement.
4. Syria and Afghanistan – forced migration and protracted exile. Syria and Afghanistan rank among the top origin countries in large part because of conflict and persecution. Neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan and Iran host millions of refugees and other displaced Syrians and Afghans. Over time, resettlement programmes and secondary movements have created newer communities in Europe, North America and Oceania – but the core of these diasporas remains in states close to the original conflicts, often with limited long-term prospects.
5. South Asian labour exporters – Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines. Bangladesh and Pakistan, like India, have deep migration ties to the Gulf, with large populations of temporary workers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and elsewhere, while the Philippines combines long-standing labour exports to East Asia and the Middle East with nursing, caregiving and maritime corridors to Europe and North America. These diasporas underpin very high remittance-to-GDP ratios in their origin countries and create tight links between domestic labour markets and global demand for low- and medium-skilled work.
6. Beyond “brain drain”: towards circulation and diaspora engagement. Historically, debates about emigration focused on “brain drain”: the loss of skilled workers and professionals. Today, many origin countries view their diasporas more actively as partners – through investment schemes, innovation networks, dual citizenship reforms and outreach to second-generation communities abroad. Whether emigration becomes a net gain or loss depends on domestic education systems, opportunities for return, and the capacity of states to engage their overseas citizens in a long-term development strategy.
In short, the Top 10 map of emigration is not just a list of countries with “too many” people leaving. It is a snapshot of diverse mobility regimes: circular labour migration, student mobility, refugee movements, family reunification and long-term settlement in high-income destinations. The same indicator can signal both structural challenges at home – lack of decent jobs, insecurity, demographic pressure – and powerful outward-facing assets, from remittances to global professional networks.
Chart 1. Emigrants abroad, TOP 10 origin countries (bar chart)
Bar heights show the approximate number of emigrants (people living outside their country of birth) for each of the Top 10 origin countries. India clearly leads with almost 18 million emigrants, while Mexico, Russia and China form the next tier. Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ukraine, the Philippines and Afghanistan follow in the 6–8 million range.
Chart 2. Top migration corridors from major origin countries (horizontal flow chart)
Instead of a geographic map with arrows, this diagram shows the largest migration corridors as horizontal bars. Each bar represents an origin–destination pair such as India → United Arab Emirates or Mexico → United States. The longer the bar, the larger the estimated migrant stock on that corridor (relative scale, not exact millions on each route).
Interpretation. The corridor chart makes visible how concentrated some diasporas are. For Mexico, almost the entire profile is dominated by the corridor Mexico → United States. India’s emigrants, by contrast, are spread across several large routes to the Gulf, North America and Europe. Russia and Syria show mixed patterns of regional and long-distance migration shaped by history, labour demand and conflict.
Data sources and further reading
The charts are based on indicative values and structures drawn from the following sources:
- UN DESA – International Migrant Stock 2024 (origin tables). Dataset overview and origin-by-destination matrix (Excel).
- UN DESA – International Migrant Stock 2024: Key Facts and Figures. Advance note summarising global migrant totals and regional breakdowns for 1990–2024. Key facts & methodology.
- Migration Policy Institute – Global migration statistics. Overview of UN DESA figures, including top origin countries and main corridors. Top statistics on migrants.
- Straits Research – Nations with the Highest Emigrant Population. Popular summary translating UN DESA migrant stock into a Top 10 origin-country ranking for 2025. Emigrant population ranking.
- IOM – World Migration Report interactive data. Maps and charts for main origin–destination corridors. Interactive migration data.
- Migration Policy Institute – Immigrant and Emigrant Populations by Country of Origin and Destination. Corridor map & data hub.
