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Law in Charts · Migration and asylum

Money sent home by migrants, as a share of national income

How much of a country's income comes from money sent home by people working abroad?

178 of 178 shown in the list

% of gross domestic product

  1. Tajikistan57.7% 2025
  2. Tonga39.3% 2025
  3. Lebanon33.3% 2023
  4. Nepal32.3% 2025
  5. Honduras30.1% 2025
  6. El Salvador27.5% 2025
  7. Nicaragua26.6% 2024
  8. Bermuda24.2% 2024
  9. Gambia23.8% 2025
  10. Marshall Islands23.5% 2024
  11. Samoa22.4% 2025
  12. Liberia21.3% 2024
  13. Comoros20.8% 2023
  14. Guatemala20.8% 2025
  15. Lesotho20.8% 2025
  16. Kyrgyzstan17.6% 2024
  17. Kosovo17.3% 2025
  18. Vanuatu17.2% 2022
  19. Haiti16.9% 2024
  20. Jamaica16.3% 2025
  21. Uzbekistan14.4% 2025
  22. Cape Verde11.7% 2025
  23. Egypt11.4% 2025
  24. Georgia11.2% 2025
  25. Bosnia and Herzegovina10.7% 2025

Source: Staff estimates, World Bank (WB); IMF balance of payments data, International Monetary Fund (IMF); World Bank GDP estimates, World Bank (WB); OECD GDP estimates, Personal remittances, received (% of GDP), via the World Bank. Data for 2020 to 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 178 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Tajikistan at 57.7% (2025) and the lowest is Angola at 0.0% (2025).
  • The middle value (the median) is 2.3%.

What it counts

Personal remittances received (money and goods sent home by migrants and by people working abroad) as a share of gross domestic product.

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

Remittances are estimated from central bank data and household surveys, and informal transfers are only partly counted. A high figure shows dependence on money sent from abroad, not the number of people who migrated.

Source

Staff estimates, World Bank (WB); IMF balance of payments data, International Monetary Fund (IMF); World Bank GDP estimates, World Bank (WB); OECD GDP estimates: Personal remittances, received (% of GDP), via the World Bank, compiled in World Bank, World Development Indicators. Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). Money sent home by migrants, as a share of national income [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/remittances-share-of-gdp. Data: Staff estimates, World Bank (WB); IMF balance of payments data, International Monetary Fund (IMF); World Bank GDP estimates, World Bank (WB); OECD GDP estimates, Personal remittances, received (% of GDP), via the World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/remittances-share-of-gdp). Data: Staff estimates, World Bank (WB); IMF balance of payments data, International Monetary Fund (IMF); World Bank GDP estimates, World Bank (WB); OECD GDP estimates, via World Bank, World Development Indicators.

BibTeX

@misc{remittancesshareofgdp2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {Money sent home by migrants, as a share of national income},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/remittances-share-of-gdp},
  note = {Data: Staff estimates, World Bank (WB); IMF balance of payments data, International Monetary Fund (IMF); World Bank GDP estimates, World Bank (WB); OECD GDP estimates, Personal remittances, received (% of GDP), via the World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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