The Countries Where Most People Weren’t Born There

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Some countries are built by people who came from somewhere else. This metric measures the share of a country's population that was born abroad — not citizens versus non-citizens, just where people first drew breath. It's a simple number that tells a big story about labour markets, wealth, war, and the sheer size of a place. Globally, the range is staggering: from a country where roughly three in four residents are foreign-born, down to nations like Cuba, where essentially everyone was born at home.

The Gulf and the tiny wealthy enclaves

The top of the list splits into two distinct groups. The first is the Gulf states, which import labour on a huge scale through what's known as the kafala system — a sponsorship model where employers bring in foreign workers, often for construction, domestic work, or services, and those workers vastly outnumber the local population. The United Arab Emirates sits at 74.0% foreign-born, Kuwait at 67.3%, Bahrain at 52.3%, Oman at 43.2%, and Saudi Arabia at 40.3%. These aren't temporary blips; they're the foundation of how Gulf economies function.

The second group is made up of tiny, wealthy enclaves where the maths works differently. Monaco (70.2%) and Liechtenstein (69.4%) aren't importing labour so much as being swamped by wealthy residents relocating to small, low-tax territories with vanishingly small native populations. Andorra (59.1%) and Luxembourg (51.2%) follow a similar pattern — when your country is small enough, it doesn't take many incomers to tip the balance.

Refugees, financial hubs, and everyday migration

Not every high figure comes from wealth. Jordan's 45.7% is driven overwhelmingly by hosting large numbers of Syrian and Palestinian refugees, a reminder that this metric captures displacement as much as opportunity. Singapore, by contrast, reached 48.7% foreign-born through its role as a financial and business hub — a striking figure next to neighbouring Indonesia, where just 0.2% of residents were born abroad.

Among larger, wealthier economies, the numbers are naturally lower but still notable. Switzerland sits around 31%, Australia hit 32% in 2025, and the UK and Germany have converged at nearly identical figures, both around 19% in 2024. These are countries that have absorbed steady migration for decades without ever approaching Gulf-style levels.

Where almost nobody was born elsewhere

At the bottom of the ranking are countries defined by isolation, size, or restricted movement. China and Madagascar sit at 0.1%, alongside Myanmar and the Philippines, also at 0.1%. Cuba records 0.0%. These are largely populous or historically closed nations where outward migration has long outpaced inward, and where policy, geography, or economic conditions have never made them a magnet for foreign arrivals.

The country at the very top

That leaves Qatar, the world's most foreign-born nation at 76.7%. Like its Gulf neighbours, Qatar's economy runs on imported labour under the kafala sponsorship system, but it takes the pattern further than anywhere else on Earth — meaning roughly three out of every four people in the country were born somewhere else entirely. It's a figure with no real parallel among large, permanent economies, and it captures just how completely a small nation's population can be reshaped by a single economic model.

Source: World Bank / UN DESA. Figures reflect the most recent available estimates, with Australia's figure dated to 2025 and the UK/Germany comparison to 2024.

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