Global Trends
Global Trends
Syrian refugees Batool, 9, and her brother Abdulaziz, 7, in the Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan.
At the end of 2025, an estimated 117.8 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing the public order.
Global forced displacement fell during 2025, for the first time in a decade. The 2025 figure represents a decrease of 5.4 million people or 4 per cent compared to the end of 2024. This change reflects a sharp increase in the returns of refugees and IDPs in some of the world’s largest displacement situations, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Syria. However, many of the returns occurred under adverse circumstances and the reintegration conditions remain extremely challenging.
One in every 70 people, or 1.4 per cent of the entire world’s population, is now forcibly displaced.
At the end of 2025, 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced.
This equates to 1 in every 70 people on Earth.
Displacement nearly doubled during the last decade.
The search for peace must be at the heart of all efforts to find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.
People forcibly displaced worldwide | 2016 – 2025
Key displacement situations in 2024
International boundary
Armistice or international administrative line
Other line of separation
Refugees
The global refugee population declined slightly by 3 per cent to reach 41.6 million at the end of the year. This includes 28.5 million refugees and people in a refugee-like situation and 7.2 million other people in need of international protection under UNHCR's mandate, as well as 6 million Palestine refugees under UNRWA's mandate.
Seven in ten refugees under UNHCR's mandate originate from just six countries: Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.
Most people fleeing conflict and persecution remain near their country of origin. At the end of 2025, 65 per cent of refugees were hosted in neighbouring countries, consistent with previous years. Low- and middle-income countries continue to host the majority of the world’s refugees, with 68 per cent of refugees and other people in need of international protection living in low- and middle-income countries.
New individual asylum applications during the year outpaced the number of decisions on those asylum claims, pushing the estimated number of asylum-seekers awaiting decisions on their claims up by 645,300, reaching almost 9 million. The Least Developed Countries provided asylum to 26 per cent of the world's refugees.
HOW MANY REFUGEES ARE THERE IN THE WORLD?
At the end of 2025, there were 41.6 million refugees globally.
HOW MANY REFUGEES RETURNED HOME?
In 2025, nearly 4.4 million refugees returned home.
Internally displaced people
Most people who are forced to flee never cross an international border, remaining displaced within their own countries. Known as internally displaced people, or IDPs, they account for 58 per cent of all forcibly displaced people.
At the end of 2025, 68.6 million people remained internally displaced due to conflict and violence, a 7 per cent decrease from the end of 2024. Sudan remains the largest internal displacement globally with 9.1 million people displaced within the country.
During 2025, there were at least 32.3 million new displacements within their own country. Most new internal displacements during the year occurred in the Islamic Republic of Iran (10 million) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (9.7 million).
At the end of 2025, 68.6 million people remained internally displaced within their own country.
IDPs constitute the majority of the forcibly displaced population globally, accounting for 58 per cent.
Sudan crisis
The war in Sudan is the world’s largest displacement crisis.
A total of 14.3 million Sudanese people remained displaced at the end of 2024. This was 3.5 million more people than 12 months prior and represents nearly one in three of the national population.
Pictured: Newly arrived Sudanese refugees in the border town of Adre, Chad. © UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
Solutions
In 2025, 14.7 million people returned to their areas or countries of origin, including nearly 4.4 million refugees and 10.3 million IDPs, representing a 49 per cent increase compared to 2024.
92 per cent of all returns occurred in just seven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.6 million), Sudan (3.5 million), Syria (3.3 million), Afghanistan (2 million), Ukraine (718,300) and Myanmar (415,200).
However, most returns in 2025 occurred under adverse conditions and to areas where insecurity persists, raising concerns about their sustainability. Afghan refugees were often compelled to return as a result of increasingly restrictive policies in their host countries, while Congolese IDPs had no choice but to leave following the forced closure of settlements. Syrian and Sudanese refugees and IDPs returned despite insecurity and inadequate basic services.
According to official government data, 81.800 refugees were resettled or arrived via sponsorship pathways. A further 93.500 refugees were naturalized or granted permanent residency during the year.
Spotlight situations: Three displacement crises in focus
Return to Syria
The fall of the government on 8 December dramatically shifted the dynamics surrounding refugee returns to Syria, with a growing number of refugees living in neighbouring countries expressing a positive intention to return home.
Pictured: Syrian refugees arrive at the Cilvegözü – Bab Al-Hawa border crossing between Türkiye and Syria to complete a voluntary repatriation process before returning home to Syria. © UNHCR/Emrah Gürel
Forcibly displaced populations
Some Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate in Gaza have also been internally displaced. In these figures, they are counted in both the internally displaced people total, and the global total of refugees. However, they are only counted once in total number of displaced people (123.2 million people).
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"There is so much talent in the camp. We just need more opportunities to showcase them."
"Basketball is my favorite sport," says Doris, a refugee from South Sudan now living in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. "It also keeps youth in the camp away from drugs and for girls it keeps them away from early pregnancies."
A humanitarian system at breaking point
UNHCR and the broader humanitarian community are facing detrimental funding cuts, that will severely impact millions of people globally.
Without sufficient funding, there will not be enough food assistance and basic shelter support for displaced people. Protection services, including safe spaces for refugee women and girls at risk of violence, are likely to be terminated. Communities that have generously hosted forcibly displaced people for years will be left without the support they need. And, perhaps most critically, hopes for returns will either not materialize or the return will not be dignified and will not be accompanied by an increase in adequate services in countries of origin. As a result, people that do return may have no choice but to leave again.
For the number of forcibly displaced people to reduce, meaningful progress is required on the root causes – conflict, disregard for the basic tenets of International Humanitarian Law, other forms of violence and persecution.
In the meantime, resources to meet urgent humanitarian needs, to support host countries, to protect people from the risks of dangerous onward movements and to help refugees and other forcibly displaced people find durable solutions are more essential than ever.
The consequences of inaction will be borne by those who can least afford it.
Without sufficient funding, there will not be enough food assistance and basic shelter support for displaced people.
Download the report and annexes
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Global Trends 2024
UNHCR's Global Trends report presents the latest numbers of refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced and stateless persons worldwide.
Download the Global Trends report
Annexes and raw data
About the UNHCR Global Trends and Mid-Year Trends reports
UNHCR releases two flagship statistical reports on global forced displacement each year, the Global Trends report and the Mid-Year Trends report. The Global Trends report, released annually in June, analyses changes and trends in forcibly displaced populations in the previous calendar year (from 1 January to 31 December). It provides key statistics on the global numbers of refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced people and stateless people, as well as their main host countries and countries of origin.
In October each year, the Mid-Year Trends report is released to provide updated figures and analysis for the initial six months of the current year (from 1 January to 30 June). These figures are preliminary, and the final data is included in the subsequent Global Trends report.
