About 1 in 70 people worldwide have been forced from their homes by conflict, violence or persecution; most stay in poorer neighbouring countries for years, and the support that helps them rebuild their lives shrank sharply in 2025.
Updated October 13, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
UNHCR estimated that 2.9 million refugees needed resettlement to a safe third country in 2025. Roughly how many actually arrived in a new country through resettlement or sponsorship that year?
117.8 million
People forcibly displaced
About 1 in 70 people worldwide at the end of 2025, including 68.7 million internally displaced people and 41.6 million refugees. The total fell by 5.4 million in 2025, the first decline in a decade.
Data year 2025. Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, 2026
68%
Refugees hosted by low- and middle-income countries
Share of refugees and other people in need of international protection under UNHCR's mandate. The least developed countries alone hosted nearly 26% of all refugees.
Data year 2025. Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, 2026
24.9 million
Refugees in protracted situations
Almost seven in ten refugees had been in exile for five years or more, in just over 1,300 protracted situations across 99 host countries. UNHCR dropped a former minimum size of 25,000 refugees per situation, so earlier counts are not directly comparable.
Data year 2025. Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, 2026
Unit: million people
Values as reported in IDMC's Global Report on Internal Displacement 2026; they include people displaced by conflict, violence and disasters. 2019 is the first year with disaster data, so earlier, conflict-only totals are not shown. The 2025 figure is the first decrease in a decade, largely due to returns in parts of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria, but IDMC notes it may also reflect reduced data availability. Of the 82.2 million, 13.6 million were displaced by disasters.
SDG target 10.7 calls for orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility. One of its indicators, 10.7.4, tracks the share of people who have become refugees: worldwide, 444 in every 100,000 people were refugees at mid-2025, up from 310 in 2020 and 214 in 2015. The first half of 2025 brought the first small decrease in more than a decade, but the UN notes that it reflects returns that often took place under adverse conditions, to areas with insecurity and limited basic services, so it does not yet signal real progress. The target sets no numerical goal. A lasting reduction depends on addressing the root causes of displacement, above all armed conflict, which is the concern of SDG 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions.
The least developed countries hosted 9.4 million refugees at the end of 2025, nearly 26% of all refugees worldwide and 12% more than a year earlier, although together they account for only 1.4% of global GDP.
Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, 2026Children make up 29% of the world's population but an estimated 39% of refugees and others in need of international protection. The share is partly modelled, because age data are missing for part of the refugee population.
Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, 2026Sub-Saharan Africa had about 31.7 million people living in internal displacement at the end of 2025, almost 39% of the global total. Sudan alone had around 9.1 million.
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2026The 2025 funding cuts reached people directly: UNHCR's cash payments fell from US$650 million to US$424 million, and 71% of cash recipients said they could meet only half or less of their basic needs. The closure of hundreds of safe spaces for women and girls and of emergency shelters sharply reduced support for refugee survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.
Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, 2026Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
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Values in per 100,000 people.
Refugees from each country, wherever they now live, per 100,000 people of its population, calculated by Our World in Data from UNHCR data; latest year available per country (currently 2024 everywhere; years can differ), so large returns in 2025, for example to Syria, are not yet reflected. It counts only refugees under UNHCR's mandate: asylum-seekers, Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA and most Venezuelans abroad (counted by UNHCR as other people in need of international protection) are excluded, so Palestine and Venezuela appear far lower than in UNHCR's official SDG 10.7.4 figures.
Source: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics, via Our World in Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from Our World in Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
LowForced displacement fell in 2025 for the first time in a decade, to 117.8 million people, but mainly because of returns that mostly took place under adverse circumstances. Almost seven in ten refugees remain in protracted exile.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateAsylum, humanitarian aid, resettlement and inclusion in national systems are long-established and well understood. Turning them into lasting solutions at scale is less proven: IDMC stresses that returns do not necessarily equate to durable solutions and that long-term monitoring is needed.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
LowLasting solutions reach few people. In 2025, 81,800 refugees arrived through resettlement or sponsorship against an estimated need of 2.9 million, and 24.9 million refugees remained in protracted situations.
UNHCR and IDMC compile government, UN and partner data with published methods, but IDMC found incomplete or outdated data for 73% of the countries and territories it monitors, and funding cuts reduced data availability in 15% of them. Some breakdowns, such as the share of children among refugees, are modelled.
The global total fell by 4% in 2025, but resettlement more than halved and new crises in 2026, including an estimated 3.2 million people temporarily displaced inside Iran by the end of March and about 1 million internally displaced people in Lebanon, kept the estimate at about 117 to 118 million by the end of April 2026.
Conflict, persecution, violence and serious human rights violations force millions of people from their homes every year. At the end of 2025, UNHCR counted 117.8 million people who remained forcibly displaced, about 1 in 70 people worldwide. Most never cross a border: 68.7 million were displaced inside their own country, while 41.6 million were refugees and almost 9 million were asylum-seekers waiting for a decision on their claim. The total fell by 5.4 million during 2025, the first decline in a decade, as returns of refugees and internally displaced people rose by half to just over 14.7 million. Most of these returns took place under adverse circumstances, to areas where insecurity persists and rebuilding a life is very hard.
Displacement is rarely short, and its costs are not shared evenly. Almost seven in ten refugees have been in exile for five years or more, and an estimated 39% are children. In Ukraine, where the war was nearing its fourth year, 3.7 million people were still displaced inside the country at the end of 2025 and 5.2 million Ukrainians were living as refugees, about 95% of them in Europe. Worldwide, 65% of refugees stay in a neighbouring country and 68% are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. People who flee lose homes, income, schooling and often their documents, and many depend on aid that is now shrinking: UNHCR's funding fell by 24% in 2025, and cash assistance, health care and protection services were cut back.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, publishes the main global count each June, using data from governments, UN agencies and, for internal displacement, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). It covers people who fled persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order. People displaced only by disasters are not included in this total:
Refugees
People who have crossed an international border and need international protection. The 1951 Refugee Convention covers people with a well-founded fear of persecution, and regional agreements widen this to people fleeing war and generalised violence. UNHCR's count includes recognised refugees, people in refugee-like situations and other people in need of international protection, plus about 6 million Palestine refugees under the mandate of UNRWA.
Asylum-seekers
People who have applied for international protection and are waiting for a decision. Almost 9 million asylum-seekers were awaiting decisions at the end of 2025. Not every asylum-seeker will be recognised as a refugee, but each has the right not to be sent back to danger while the claim is examined.
Internally displaced people (IDPs)
People forced to flee who stay within their own country. They have no special international legal status and remain under the protection of their own government. IDMC counts both the number of people living in displacement at the end of the year and the number of movements during the year; one person who flees several times is counted several times in the movement figure. IDMC also counts people displaced by disasters, who are not part of UNHCR's total.
Protracted displacement and durable solutions
A refugee situation is called protracted when refugees have been in exile for five years or more without immediate prospects of a lasting solution. The traditional durable solutions are voluntary return in safety and dignity, local integration in the host country and resettlement to a third country. UNHCR now also tracks whether refugees can meet their basic needs without humanitarian aid.
What works
Most refugees find safety in a neighbouring country, 65% at the end of 2025. Registration, identity documents and the rule that no one may be sent back to a place where they face serious danger give them basic legal protection and access to aid. Asylum procedures decide who qualifies as a refugee and are the entry point to every other solution.
Limits
Asylum systems are under strain: the number of asylum-seekers awaiting a decision grew by 645,300 in 2025 to almost 9 million. Neighbouring countries are often poor or fragile themselves, and legal protection alone does not guarantee work, schooling or safety.
What works
Food, shelter, water, health care and protection services keep people alive and safe in emergencies. Cash transfers let families decide what they need most, such as rent, food or school costs.
Limits
Aid depends on donor budgets. In 2025 UNHCR's cash payments fell from US$650 million to US$424 million, 71% of cash recipients said they could meet half or less of their basic needs, and UNHCR recorded a decrease in basic needs assistance in more than two-thirds of countries.
What works
When refugees can work legally, move freely and use public schools and health services, they depend less on aid. A joint UNHCR and World Bank estimate suggests that if refugees worldwide could work at the same rate as nationals, the cost of complementary assistance would fall from about US$22 billion to US$6 billion a year.
Limits
Inclusion shifts costs to host countries, most of which are low- or middle-income. Meeting refugees' basic needs and covering their health and education in these countries would cost almost three times the US$14.4 billion of refugee-related aid they received in 2023. The savings estimate is a model, not an observed result.
What works
Resettlement moves refugees who cannot stay safely in their host country or return home, such as survivors of violence or torture and women and children at risk, to a country that offers them lasting residence. In 2024, 188,800 refugees arrived through resettlement or sponsorship, the highest level in at least four decades.
Limits
Places depend on the political will of receiving states. Arrivals fell by more than half to 81,800 in 2025, mainly because of fewer arrivals in major resettlement countries, particularly the United States, while UNHCR estimated that 2.9 million refugees needed resettlement.
What works
Going home in safety and dignity is the solution many refugees and internally displaced people hope for, and returns can be large once fighting eases. In 2025, nearly 4.4 million refugees and just over 10.3 million internally displaced people returned, mostly to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Myanmar.
Limits
Most returns in 2025 took place under adverse circumstances, to areas where insecurity persists and reintegration conditions are very difficult. Without investment in housing, services and livelihoods, returns may not last, and UNHCR reports that in some cases returns amounted to forced return to danger (refoulement).
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Under its '50 by 35' initiative, UNHCR aims to help halve, by 2035, the number of refugees and others in protracted displacement who cannot meet their basic needs without humanitarian assistance. A person counts as aid-dependent if their consumption, excluding aid, is below the host country's national poverty line. Success depends on host-country policies, development finance and survey data on refugees, which are still scarce.
Family reunification, work visas and university places can give refugees legal routes to safety in addition to resettlement. Between 2016 and 2023, 38 countries issued permits to over 1.7 million refugees through such complementary pathways, mostly for family reasons, with labour and study routes growing. UNHCR stresses that they must add to resettlement places, not replace them.
Including refugees in national household surveys and censuses, as Ethiopia did with a nationally representative socio-economic survey of refugees in 2022 and 2023, gives governments the same evidence on refugees' work, income and schooling as on citizens. Basic breakdowns by sex and age were available for refugees in 142 of 172 countries in 2024, but credible poverty data on refugees remain limited.
UNHCR and its partners call for giving national organisations, including groups led by refugees, a larger role in responses and more direct funding. Progress is slow: only 13% of aid for refugee situations in low- and middle-income countries went to national actors in 2022 and 2023, and UNHCR reports that the 2025 cuts hit refugee-led organisations disproportionately.
Implementation gap
UNHCR's funding fell by 24% to US$3.9 billion in 2025, enough for only 37% of its US$10.6 billion budget. Its workforce shrank by more than a third, and it operated in 122 countries and territories instead of 137.
Coordination gap
Several countries paused or downsized resettlement programmes, removing about 166,000 places between 2024 and 2025. UNHCR reports that quotas for 2026 amounted to about 20,000 places, less than 1% of global resettlement needs, which are projected at nearly 2.4 million for 2027.
Coordination gap
Easing the pressure on host countries is the first objective of the Global Compact on Refugees, affirmed by the UN General Assembly in 2018. Yet refugee-related aid to low- and middle-income host countries was projected to fall by about 9% in 2024 and to about US$11.9 billion or less in 2025, after cuts announced by four donors that together provided 40% of it in 2023. In 2023, 70% of all aid counted for refugee situations was spent by donor countries on the first year of hosting refugees and asylum-seekers within their own borders.
Implementation gap
By mid-2025, about 62% of refugees in 96 countries had full legal access to the labour market, but only 47% could take formal jobs without restriction in practice. The share with legal freedom of movement fell from 72% to 67% between 2022 and 2024.
Coordination gap
Conflict and violence triggered 32.3 million internal displacement movements in 2025, more than double the decade's average and the highest on record. Without peace and safety in places of origin, people cannot return for good, and returns do not necessarily equal durable solutions.
Knowledge gap
Data were incomplete or outdated for 73% of the countries and territories IDMC monitored, and reduced funding for humanitarian data collection cut data availability in 15% of them. Without reliable counts, it is hard to know who has found a lasting solution and who is still at risk.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
How can governments and agencies measure whether people who returned, integrated locally or were resettled have reached a lasting solution, and how many of the returns in 2025 will hold?
How do the right to work and access to public services for refugees affect wages, prices, public budgets and social cohesion in low-income host countries over the long term?
How will more frequent weather extremes change the scale and pattern of displacement, and what protection is owed to people who cross a border because of a disaster but do not meet the refugee definition?
Which mix of humanitarian aid, development finance and host-government budgets can sustain schooling, health care and livelihoods in protracted crises as humanitarian funding falls?
If you donate, unearmarked gifts let refugee agencies and local or refugee-led organisations direct money to the largest gaps; check that they publish how funds were spent and what was achieved. DO GOOD's own Ukraine project supports families displaced by the war with trauma-informed care and humanitarian aid.
Local resettlement and integration groups often need volunteers for language practice, mentoring or help with paperwork. Employers can check whether refugees in their country have the right to work and consider them for open positions.
Find out how many refugees your country resettles and how much of its aid supports major host countries, and raise it with your elected representatives.
Debates about refugees often rely on numbers taken out of context. Before sharing a claim, compare it with official data from UNHCR or IDMC, and use respectful, person-first language.
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UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, published 2026
UNHCR's annual statistical report with end-2025 figures (published June 2026): 117.8 million forcibly displaced, refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs, returns, resettlement arrivals and needs, hosting by neighbouring, low- and middle-income and least developed countries, protracted situations, children, Ukraine, the '50 by 35' target, the SDG 10.7.4 definition and early-2026 estimates.
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), published 2026
Global data on internal displacement for 2025: 82.2 million IDPs at the end of the year (68.6 million by conflict and violence, 13.6 million by disasters), 62.2 million movements, regional and country figures, the 2016-2025 trend and data gaps caused by funding cuts.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, published 2026
UNHCR's annual report on its 2025 operations and finances: funding down 24% to US$3.9 billion, 63% funding gap, workforce reductions, and effects on cash assistance, nutrition, education, mental health support, gender-based violence services, returns and the Ukraine operation.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, published 2026
Annual estimate of refugees in need of resettlement (nearly 2.4 million for 2027, after a peak of 2.9 million in 2025), with data on shrinking resettlement places and quotas and UNHCR submissions in 2025.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, published 2025
Third official progress report on the four objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees, with data from 2016 to mid-2025 on refugee-related aid, right to work and freedom of movement, complementary pathways, statistical inclusion, localisation and UNHCR-World Bank cost estimates.
United Nations Statistics Division (data from UNHCR), published 2026
Official UN progress report on SDG 10, including indicator 10.7.4: refugees per 100,000 people worldwide in 2015, 2020 and mid-2025, the first small decrease in over a decade, and the need to address root causes such as conflict.