At least 117.8 million people worldwide—or one in every 70—are living under forced displacement due to conflict, violence, human rights abuses, and other crises, according to a report released today by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
For the first time in a decade, the number of displaced people fell by about 4 percent in 2025, driven by large-scale returns of refugees and internally displaced persons from the world's biggest crises. However, that progress has been overshadowed by the rapidly escalating displacement crisis in Lebanon. Since the U.S.-Israel war targeting Iran began in late March 2026, Israeli airstrikes have forced more than a million people to flee, with an additional 3.2 million internally displaced inside Iran.
Of the 117.3 million forcibly displaced people, 68.6 million are internally displaced within their own countries due to conflict or other crises; roughly 28.5 million are refugees under UNHCR's mandate; 9 million are asylum-seekers—people awaiting a decision while seeking protection abroad due to persecution or fear of harm at home; 7.2 million are in need of international protection; and 6 million are Palestinian refugees under UNRWA's mandate.
Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of all refugees worldwide come from just seven countries: Venezuela (6.4 million), Palestine (6 million), Ukraine (5.2 million), Syria (4.9 million), Afghanistan (3.7 million), Sudan (2.8 million), and South Sudan (2.4 million).
More than a third of the world's refugees live in seven main host countries. Colombia (2.8 million), Germany (2.7 million), Turkey (2.4 million), Uganda (1.9 million), Iran (1.7 million), Chad (1.5 million), and Pakistan (1.3 million) host the largest refugee populations. About 65 percent of refugees and others in need of international protection live in countries neighboring their country of origin.
The history of global displacement began in 1951 when the UN established the Refugee Convention, at which time there were only 2.1 million refugees. By 1980, that number topped 10 million for the first time. Wars in Afghanistan and Ethiopia during the 1980s doubled the refugee count to 20 million by 1990. The war in Ukraine that began in 2022 triggered one of the fastest-growing refugee crises since World War II, with 5.7 million people forced to flee Ukraine in less than a year. The 2023 conflict in Sudan pushed the refugee count to 1.5 million, while Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. Most recently, the U.S.-Israel war targeting Iran has sparked a new displacement crisis in Lebanon.
In 2025, the number of refugees and internally displaced people returning home rose by 50 percent compared to 2024, with more than 14.7 million people going back—the largest wave of returns UNHCR has ever recorded. Ninety-two percent of returnees came from six countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (3.6 million), Sudan (3.6 million), Syria (3.3 million), Afghanistan (2 million), Ukraine (718,300), and Myanmar (415,200). UNHCR warned that conditions for returnees are far from ideal, as many go back to areas still experiencing violence and instability, raising questions about the dangers they face upon return to their countries of origin.
