India’s diaspora is the largest at around 19 million, with significant numbers of international immigrants living in UAE, US and Saudi Arabia. With this backing, India continued its march as the top country receiving remittances, but 2024 was spectacular with inflows of $137 billion.The country also emerges as one of the biggest source countries for student and skilled migration, according to the World Migration Report 2026 released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
| Rank | 2015 | 2020 | 2022 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | India — $68.91 bn | India — $83.15 bn | India — $111.22 bn | India — $137.67 bn |
| 2 | China — $63.94 bn | China — $59.51 bn | Mexico — $61.10 bn | Mexico — $68.00 bn |
| 3 | The Philippines — $29.80 bn | Mexico — $42.88 bn | China — $51.00 bn | China — $48.00 bn |
All figures are in US dollars (USD) and in billions.According to the report, India was the only country to cross the $100-billion remittance mark , underlining the enormous economic footprint of the Indian diaspora spread across the world.The report noted that remittance inflows into India have risen sharply over the past decade from around $53 billion in 2010 to over $137 billion in 2024, driven by strong earnings by Indian workers and professionals in the US, the UAE, UK, Canada and Australia. Mexico, with inward remittances of $ 68 billion was the second-largest recipient in 2024, China’s inward remittances in 2022 were $ 48 billion.India’s dominance in remittance flows comes amid a broader transformation in migration patterns. While Gulf nations continue to employ millions of Indian workers in construction, services and domestic work, the report highlighted the rapid rise in high-skilled migration from India, particularly in technology, healthcare, engineering and research sectors.The report does not separately reflect the top source countries of inward remittances to India, but understandably it would be from the top diaspora countries. The size of a migration corridor from ‘country A’ to ‘country B’ is measured as the number of people born in ‘country A’ who were residing in ‘country B’ at the time of the estimate. The Mexico to United States corridor is the largest in the world at nearly 11 million people.
| Rank | Destination country | Number of Indians |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UAE | 3.57 million |
| 2 | USA | 2.90 million |
| 3 | Saudi Arabia | 2.59 million |
The India-UAE corridor is the fifth largest. Data released by IOM shows that there were nearly 3.6 million Indians in the UAE, followed by 2.9 million in the US (which was the sixth largest international migration corridor). Other key corridors relative to India are the India-Saudi Arabia corridor with 2.6 million Indians, UK housed 1.8 million Indians.The report paints a sweeping picture of India’s growing role in global migration flows, from blue-collar workers in the Gulf and tech professionals in North America to hundreds of thousands of students heading overseas for education.
