2026-11-04 · USD remittances (global)
Remittances beat foreign aid for many countries
Workers send home hundreds of billions — flows exceed ODA in totals.
Migrant workers send home an estimated $900 billion in 2026 — more than the world gives in official foreign aid. Two-thirds of it reaches low- and middle-income countries, where for millions of families remittances, not aid, pay for food, school fees and clinics.
1 cell = 900 million USD remittances (global) (0.1% of global remittance flows) · 1,000 cells
Context
In 2023, remittances to home countries totalled about $656 billion — roughly the GDP of Belgium — sent by 184 million migrants worldwide, about half of whom live in high-income countries.
The dependence runs deep: more than 60 countries count on remittances for at least 3 percent of GDP, and small or fragile states are the most reliant of all.
The World Bank has long pushed to cut the cost of sending money home, tracking remittance prices quarterly and working to eliminate barriers to entry in the remittances market.
World Bank KNOMAD remittance flows.
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