Dataset · UNHCR
Refugee Population by Country of Asylum
36 years, 1990–2025 · 177 countries
How many refugees under UNHCR's mandate were living in each country at the end of the year — recognised refugees and people in refugee-like situations, counted where they have found protection. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, compiles it from governments and its own operations, and it is the standard world count of who hosts the people who have fled their own country.
This site holds every year from 1990 to 2025, read from UNHCR’s own data and stored exactly as published.
Refugee Population by Country of Asylum · the file
- Newest
- Refugee Population by Country of Asylum, 2025
- Held
- 36 years · 5,687 rows
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
0136 years
Every year
Newest first. Each opens the full table for that year, and each downloads as a CSV.
Show all 36 years
Every year in one file, one row per country per year: refugees-hosted-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
023 columns
What’s in the file
Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.
| Column | What it holds | Stored as | Range, 2025 | Distinct | Empty | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CountrycountryName | The country’s name, as this file spells it. | Text | — | 177 | 0 | |
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifier | The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it. | Text · 3 letters | — | 177 | 0 | |
Refugees under UNHCR's mandate hosted, end of year (people)refugeesHeadline | The headline figure: Refugees under UNHCR's mandate hosted, end of year (people). | Number · whole numbers | 010 share it2,655,191 Germanymiddle 12,269 | 160 | 0 |
Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. Neither end is better. The values describe a shape, not a score.
03192 countries across every year
Who is covered
How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 49 | 49 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 51 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 51 |
| Americas | 31 | 32 | 34 | 34 | 35 | 37 | 38 | 37 | 37 | 35 | 37 | 36 |
| Asia | 45 | 45 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 | 43 |
| Europe | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 |
| Oceania | 6 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
| All | 172 | 175 | 175 | 174 | 176 | 176 | 177 | 179 | 177 | 177 | 180 | 177 |
The newest 12 of 36 years.
Who joined and who left
- 2025
+ Vanuatu
− Antigua and Barbuda
− Equatorial Guinea
− Palau
− Solomon Islands - 2024+ Antigua and Barbuda
+ Dominica+ Equatorial Guinea+ Palau
+ British Virgin Islands
− Nicaragua− Vanuatu - 2023
+ Barbados
+ Haiti
+ Saint Lucia
+ Mauritius+ Vanuatu
− Anguilla− Antigua and Barbuda
− Grenada
− Jamaica
− Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - 2022+ Antigua and Barbuda− Barbados− Mauritius− Vanuatu
- 2021
+ Comoros+ Solomon Islands+ Vanuatu− Haiti - 2020+ Grenada
- 2019+ Anguilla+ Saint Vincent and the Grenadines− Solomon Islands
− Samoa - 2018+ Barbados
+ Singapore+ Solomon Islands
− Macau
Not in this dataset · 33 places this site covers
UNHCR gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.
American Samoa
Andorra
Bermuda
BhutanChannel Islands
Cook Islands
Faroe Islands
French Polynesia
Gibraltar
Greenland
Guam
Isle of Man
Kiribati
Kosovo
Laos
Maldives
Marshall Islands
New Caledonia
NiueNorthern Cyprus
Northern Mariana Islands
Palestine
Puerto Rico
Saint Martin
San Marino
São Tomé and Príncipe
SeychellesSomaliland
Taiwan
Tonga
Tuvalu
United States Virgin Islands
Vatican City04Provenance
Where it comes from
The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.
1 · Publisher
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency
2 · Their file
Refugee Population by Country of Asylum 2025
Read from the publisher’s own service.3 · Read by this site
September 26, 2026
Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.4 · Stored as
36 files, one per year
Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as refugees-hosted-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
Precision
The headline is stored in whole numbers, as published.
Rounded by this site
Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.
Changed by this site
Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.
Read from the UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database through UNHCR's own API, grouped by country of asylum, rather than from the World Bank's copy. UNHCR rounds figures below five to the nearest multiple of five to protect confidentiality. Serbia's figure includes Kosovo, as UNHCR publishes it.
05Reuse
Licence and credit
What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.
Licence · checked September 26, 2026
- Share and redistribute it
- Adapt it and build on it
- Use it commercially
- Credit the publisher
- Say what you changed
Share, adapt and use commercially. Credit the publisher and say if you changed anything.
A credit line
Source: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Refugee Population by Country of Asylum, via Nations Inquiry.
Cite this dataset
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Refugee Population by Country of Asylum, 1990–2025 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/refugees-hosted
The publisher’s own citation: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.
06Questions
Refugee Population by Country of Asylum: questions and answers
What is the Refugee Population by Country of Asylum?
How many refugees under UNHCR's mandate were living in each country at the end of the year — recognised refugees and people in refugee-like situations, counted where they have found protection. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, compiles it from governments and its own operations, and it is the standard world count of who hosts the people who have fled their own country.
Which years of the Refugee Population by Country of Asylum can I download?
All 36, from 1990 to 2025, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.
Does UNHCR rank countries on it?
No, and this site does not order it either. The files hold values only.
Can I use it commercially?
Yes, under CC BY 4.0, with credit to UNHCR. The licence text is linked on this page.