No country comes close to the United States for the number of people born abroad. In the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ International Migrant Stock 2024 estimates, the countries with the most immigrants are the United States, with about 52.4 million people born abroad, Germany with 17.8 million and Saudi Arabia with 13.7 million, followed by France (13.0 million) and the United Kingdom (11.8 million). The UN counts anyone living in a country other than the one they were born in, whatever their current citizenship. The list looked very different twenty years ago: in the UN’s 2005 figures Russia was second and Ukraine fourth, while the United Arab Emirates was 14th and Egypt was outside the top 90. This guide sets the present ranking against the past and explains who rose, who fell and why.
The UN’s 2024 top 10, led by the United States
The table below uses the UN’s 2024 estimates. The third column is the share of each country’s own population that was born abroad, which matters as much as the raw number.
| Rank | Country | Immigrants (2024) | Share of population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 52,375,047 | 15.3% |
| 2 | Germany | 17,750,084 | 21.3% |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | 13,683,841 | 38.8% |
| 4 | France | 12,986,757 | 18.8% |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 11,845,479 | 17.1% |
| 6 | Egypt | 9,985,453 | 9.3% |
| 7 | Spain | 9,510,527 | 19.2% |
| 8 | Canada | 8,805,839 | 21.2% |
| 9 | United Arab Emirates | 8,157,000 | 72.2% |
| 10 | Russia | 7,605,774 | 5.2% |
The United States is first in each of these UN counts, and its lead keeps widening. Its foreign-born population was almost 20 million in 1990, grew by 57.4% during the 1990s, passed 47 million by 2015 on US estimates and reached 52.4 million in the UN’s 2024 estimate, three times Germany’s total. Yet at 15.3% the US share is lower than Germany’s, Canada’s or Spain’s, because its native-born population is so large.
2005 against 2024: Russia and Ukraine slide down the list
The UN’s 2005 estimates, published in its International Migration 2006 chart, put the top 10 in this order: the United States (38.4 million), Russia (12.1 million), Germany (10.1 million), Ukraine (6.8 million), France (6.5 million), Saudi Arabia (6.4 million), Canada (6.2 million), India (5.7 million), the United Kingdom (5.4 million) and Spain (4.8 million).
Russia and Ukraine owed much of their high places to the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Because the UN counts by country of birth, people born in one Soviet republic and living in another were counted as international migrants once the republics became separate countries, and most recent immigrants to Russia still come from former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Rosstat and the UN put Russia’s immigrant stock at between 11 and 12 million throughout 2000 to 2015, and Russia was still fourth in 2020. Since then the count has fallen: the UN’s 2024 figure is 7.6 million, enough only for 10th place, and Russia’s own statistics show the number of foreign citizens living there dropping to 5.7 million in 2026. Ukraine has dropped out of the top 10 altogether, to 14th with 5.1 million, and India, eighth in 2005, is now 15th with 4.8 million.
Germany’s climb from 10 million to 17.8 million
Germany has held on to a top-three place throughout, but its total has risen by three-quarters since 2005. Its modern immigration began with the post-war labour shortage, when West Germany signed recruitment agreements for “guest workers” with Italy in 1955, Greece and Spain in 1960, Turkey in 1961, and later Morocco, South Korea, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. Many of those workers stayed and brought families. After 2012, more than one million people moved to Germany every year, and arrivals passed two million in both 2015, the year of the Syrian refugee crisis, and 2022, the year Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. By 2015 the UN counted 12.0 million, enough to have overtaken Russia for second place, and by 2024 17.8 million, just over a fifth of its population.
The United Kingdom followed a similar curve for different reasons. Its immigrant stock rose from 5.4 million in 2005 to 8.5 million in 2015 and 11.8 million in 2024. When eight central and eastern European states joined the European Union in 2004, about 1.5 million workers from the new members came to the UK between May 2004 and September 2009, although many later returned. Free movement from the EU ended with the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020. The 2021–2022 censuses recorded 10.7 million foreign-born residents, 16% of the population and 34% more than in 2011.
Oil, labour and the rise of Saudi Arabia and the UAE
The Gulf states rose because their economies are built on imported labour. Saudi Arabia had 6.4 million immigrants in 2005, 9.1 million in 2015 and 13.7 million in 2024, and its 2010 census counted 8.4 million expatriates out of 27.1 million residents. The kingdom encouraged foreign skilled and semi-skilled workers after the oil boom of the 1970s, and they now come from across Asia and the Arab world. The flow has not only gone one way: after the 1991 Gulf War, Saudi Arabia expelled about 800,000 Yemenis.
The United Arab Emirates grew even faster, from 3.2 million immigrants in 2005 to 7.8 million by 2015, the decade in which the Burj Khalifa, begun in January 2004 and opened in January 2010, rose over Downtown Dubai with a workforce drawn from abroad. It has barely grown in absolute terms since, and its share has eased from about 84% in 2015 to 72.2% in 2024.
Spain and France: western Europe’s fastest climbers
Spain’s rise has been especially steep. Immigrants made up just 1.6% of its population in 1998 and more than 12% by 2009. Governments under José María Aznar and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero gave residency to more than a million undocumented migrants in amnesties in 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2005, and after a dip during the financial crisis, immigration accelerated again after 2021. The UN’s 2024 figure is 9.5 million, almost double the 2005 count, and Spain’s own statistics put the foreign-born share at 20.3% in January 2026.
France has climbed from 6.5 million in 2005 and 7.8 million in 2015 to 13.0 million in 2024, overtaking the United Kingdom for fourth place. Canada has moved the other way in rank, from seventh to eighth, even though its immigrant population grew from 6.2 million to 8.8 million, because others grew faster.
Egypt and Turkey: neighbours of the Sudan and Syria wars
Egypt is the most unexpected entry, sixth with an estimated 10.0 million. It has long hosted large Sudanese communities, helped by proximity and by earlier bilateral agreements that once allowed Sudanese broad freedom of movement and residence. Since fighting broke out in Sudan in April 2023, Egypt has received the largest share of those fleeing, with more than 1.2 million arrivals reported by November 2024. Turkey, just outside the top 10 at 12th with 7.1 million, reflects a similar story: more than half of the 6.7 million Syrians who left their country went there.
Australia, Italy and the 2015 halfway mark
The UN’s 2015 revision sits neatly between the two snapshots. Its order was the United States (46.6 million), Germany (12.0 million), Russia (11.6 million), Saudi Arabia (9.1 million), the United Kingdom (8.5 million), Canada (7.85 million), the UAE (7.83 million), France (7.78 million), Australia (6.8 million) and Spain (5.9 million). By then Ukraine and India had already fallen out, and the Gulf and western Europe had moved in.
Australia is the clearest example of a country that keeps growing yet loses ground in the ranking. Its immigrant population rose from 4.1 million in 2005 to 6.8 million in 2015 and 7.1 million in 2024, when 25.8% of its residents had been born overseas, a far higher share than the United States, Germany or France. Even so, it slipped from ninth in 2015 to 11th in 2024, overtaken by Egypt and Spain. Italy made a similar climb from a lower base: 2.5 million immigrants in 2005, 5.8 million in 2015 and 6.6 million in 2024, placing it 13th behind Turkey. Both show that the top 10 is a ranking of absolute numbers, which favours large countries, and that many of the biggest movements of the past two decades have come from sudden events such as wars, refugee flows and construction booms rather than from steady settlement.
Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait: the highest shares of immigrants
Ranking by share of population turns the list inside out. Among sovereign states, Qatar has the highest proportion at 72.7%, the UAE 72.2%, Monaco 70.6% and Kuwait 68.1%, followed by Liechtenstein at 67.5%. Of the ten largest immigrant populations, only the UAE also appears here. At the other end, Cuba has the lowest share of any country, about 0.02%, and China’s 1.6 million immigrants are just 0.1% of its population.
The global total has grown steadily. The UN counted about 244 million international migrants in 2015, 41% more than in 2000, and the ranking will keep shifting as wars, labour demand and ageing reshape where people move. For the forced side of that movement, see the countries with the most refugees; for the wider pattern, our guide to modern migration patterns traces the main routes, and the economy of Saudi Arabia explains why the Gulf depends on foreign workers.