India tops global remittances with over $137 billion inflows in 2024: UN

India received more than 137 billion dollars in remittances in 2024, the top remittance recipient country in the world and the only nation to surpass 100 billion dollars, the UN agency on migration said.

"India consistently leads as the top recipient of remittances, followed by Mexico," the World Migration Report 2026, released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday, said.

In 2024, India, Mexico, the Philippines and France were the top four remittance recipient countries globally.

"India, however, continued to be well above the rest, receiving more than $ 137 billion, and remained the only country to surpass $ 100 billion," the report said.

 

Since 2010, India has been the top remittance receiving country in the world, when it had received 53.48 billion dollars, which grew over the years to 68.91 billion dollars in 2015, 83.15 billion dollars in 2020 and 137.67 billion dollars in 2024.

The report said that the distribution of remittances varies across regions as well, with South Asia estimated to experience the highest growth in 2024 at 11.8 per cent, driven by continued strong inflows to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

High-income countries are almost always the main source of international remittances. For decades, the United States of America has consistently been the top remittance-sending country in the world, with a total outflow surpassing $ 100 billion in 2024. It was followed by Saudi Arabia (over $ 46 billion), Switzerland (around $ 40 billion) and Germany (nearly $ 24 billion).

The report also said that countries in Asia continue to account for the largest share of internationally mobile students. In 2022, more than one million international students came from China, the single largest origin country worldwide. India ranked second, with over 620,000 students abroad.

Beyond these two leading countries, origin country numbers drop considerably: Uzbekistan (150,000), Viet Nam (134,000) and Germany (126,000) follow, while the United States, France, Nigeria, the Syrian Arab Republic and Nepal each had between 95,000 and 115,000 students studying abroad. More than half of the world's internationally mobile students reside in countries in Europe and North America.

The Indian diaspora has been instrumental in the expansion of India's technology sector, it said. 

The report pointed out that protecting migration's role in development also means addressing the "brain drain" challenge and turning it into "brain gain". When skilled workers emigrate, origin countries may lose human capital, but tailored policies can circulate knowledge so that both origin and destination countries benefit.

"India's brain gain efforts include annual diaspora conventions and innovation hubs to entice Indian scientists and entrepreneurs back (or to mentor startups remotely), while China's initiatives like the Thousand Talents Plan have successfully attracted thousands of overseas Chinese academics to return and bolster domestic research and development. Such programmes can have mixed results, however, notwithstanding the longer-term benefits," it said.

The report also noted that, consistent with previous years, the  largest internal displacements in Asia in 2024 were triggered by disasters rather than conflict and violence.

The Philippines recorded the highest number of internal disaster displacements in the region and the second largest in the world, after the United States. There were nearly 9 million disaster displacements in the Philippines in 2024, most of which (86 per cent) were the result of typhoons.

Internal disaster displacements in India were the second largest in the region, exceeding 5 million, and triggered by floods and storms, including significant cyclones. China, with more than 3.9 million internal disaster displacements in 2024, recorded the third highest figure in Asia, driven largely by Typhoon Yagi.

Further, all of the five largest migration corridors involving countries in Oceania comprise migrants to Australia, with the largest corridor being from the United Kingdom to Australia.

Just over 1 million migrants from the United Kingdom were living in Australia in 2024, and this number has remained relatively stable over the last 35 years.

The second and third-largest corridors were from India and China to Australia (around 876,000 and 656,000, respectively).

"Australia was home to the largest number of refugees and asylum-seekers in 2024, with nearly 30,000 refugees and over 91,000 asylum-seekers residing in the country. Most asylum-seekers in Australia come from Asia, but from a wide range of countries, including China and India, which were the origin countries of the first and second largest number of asylum-seekers in Australia in 2024.