Key facts for countries hosting the world's refugees

The global number of refugees has grown for more than a decade, reaching 37.4 million at end-2023, including people in refugee-like situations and other people in need of international protection. However, while the number of people forced to flee due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order, has continued to rise, three facts have remained relatively consistent over time:

The story behind each of these three facts is explained below. Unless otherwise stated, all references to refugees in this article refer to refugees under UNHCR's mandate, people in refugee-like situations and other people in need of international protection and do not include Palestine refugees under UNRWA's mandate (see definitions). See also this summary which explains who is included in UNHCR's statistics.

The Global Compact on Refugees emphasizes the importance of greater responsibility- and burden-sharing. Yet, when it comes to hosting refugees, the weight is not equally shared. The proportion of refugees hosted in low- and middle-income countries helps us to assess how the responsibility for hosting refugees is shared globally. The underlying classification of countries into low, middle and high income groups is based on the World Bank's income groups, which are updated annually. The income levels of countries are determined by calculating the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita.¹

Figure 1 shows that at end-2023, 75 per cent of refugees are hosted in upper-middle-income countries (30 per cent), lower-middle-income countries (28 per cent) and low-income countries (17 per cent). As an alternative measure, 21 per cent were hosted in the least developed countries. ²

There are marked changes in the distribution of refugees according to their host countries' income level over time. The two most prominent changes relate to a sharp increase in the share of refugees hosted in upper-middle-income countries since 2009, increasing from 7 per cent in 2009 to 30 per cent by end-2023. Upper-middle-income countries, such as Türkiye, Lebanon and Jordan, provided asylum to millions of Syrian refugees, while countries such as Colombia, Peru and Ecuador received a high number of Venezuelans.

The share of refugees hosted by low-income countries has also decreased in comparison to the early 1990s (51 per cent in 1990, compared with 17 per cent by end-2023). This can be largely attributed to the economic development of large hosting countries within the group, which were re-classified as lower-middle-income during this period, such as Pakistan. High-income countries have hosted between 17 and 28 per cent of refugees during the same years, with a notable increase in 2022 due primarily to the numbers of Ukrainian refugees hosted in high-income, mainly European countries.

Low-income countries host a disproportionately large share of the global refugee population, both in terms of their population size and the resources available to them. These countries, represent 9 per cent of the global population³ and only 0.4 per cent of the global gross domestic product,⁴ yet host 16 per cent of refugees. This includes very large refugee populations in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. High-income countries, which account for nearly two-thirds of the global wealth, hosted 25 per cent of refugees at end-2023.

Most people fleeing conflict and persecution remain near their country of origin. The share of refugees hosted by neighbouring countries, is an indicator that can help measure this. Since 1990, this proportion has varied between 63 per cent in 2005 and 82 per cent in 2015, as millions of Syrian refugees received asylum in neighbouring countries, notably Türkiye. In fact, this indicator underestimates the extent to which refugees seek protection near their country of origin. For example, many refugees from Ukraine are hosted by nearby countries in Europe that do not directly neighbour Ukraine, such as Germany.

The number of refugees in each host country from the selected country of origin is shown in the interactive chart below. The size of the bubble for each country of asylum represents the number of refugees from the selected country of origin. Neighbouring countries are highlighted in blue.

Protracted situations are defined as those where more than 25,000 refugees from the same country of origin have been in exile in a given low- or middle-income host country for at least five consecutive years. This definition should be seen as a reflection of the situation as a whole and does not refer to circumstances of individual refugees. As more people become displaced and while few are able to return or find other durable solutions to their forced displacement, an increasing number find themselves in protracted situations. While this does not necessarily imply that each refugee remains in displacement longer today than ten years ago, over the last two decades the share of refugees in a protracted situation has increased.

By end-2023, an estimated 24.9 million refugees and other people in need of international protection were in a protracted situation. There were 58 protracted situations in 37 different host countries, as shown in the interactive summary above.