More Syrian refugees returned in 2025 than in 2015–2024 combined
Syrian refugees who returned home each year, thousands, 2015–2025, as counted by UNHCR.
- 1. One in ten in Japan will be foreign by 2070
- 2. Japan's foreign residents have doubled since 2012, passing 4 million
- 3. Jakarta, not Tokyo, is the world's largest city
- 4. Two in three newly licensed UK doctors qualified abroad
- 5. Iran dropped from top refugee host to fifth in 2025
- 6. Egypt has more asylum seekers than Germany, Spain and Italy
- 7. Chad rose from 15th to 6th among refugee hosts
- 8. Türkiye overtook France in hosting foreign students
- 9. Uzbekistan's university enrolment rose from 8% to 57%
- 10. Japan rose from ninth to second as Vietnamese emigrants' home
- 11. South Korea turned from student sender into student host
- 12. Nigeria became the third-biggest sender of students abroad
- 13. Pakistanis abroad now send home more than Pakistan exports
- 14. More Syrian refugees returned in 2025 than in 2015–2024 combined
Syrian refugees who returned home in 2025, more than the 1,060k of the ten years 2015–2024 combined.
Returns in 2025 against 2024 (513k), the year that ended with the fall of Syria's government in December.
Syrian refugees still abroad at the end of 2025, down from 6.85 million in 2021: back to the 2015 level.
the numbers & method
| Returns (k) | |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 0 |
| 2016 | 0 |
| 2017 | 77 |
| 2018 | 211 |
| 2019 | 95 |
| 2020 | 39 |
| 2021 | 36 |
| 2022 | 51 |
| 2023 | 38 |
| 2024 | 513 |
| 2025 | 1,341 |
Claim types Fact
UNHCR Refugee Data Finder, population statistics API (api.unhcr.org/population/v1/population/, country of origin Syria, fields 'returned_refugees' and 'refugees'), end-year figures, read from the UNHCR API. Returned refugees, Syria: 2015 188; 2016 0; 2017 77,212; 2018 210,946; 2019 94,981; 2020 38,563; 2021 36,486; 2022 51,299; 2023 37,552; 2024 512,718; 2025 1,341,148. Sum 2015–2024: 1,059,945 (progrss calculation). Syrian refugees under UNHCR's mandate (end-year): 2015 4,873,236; 2021 6,848,865 (series high since 2015); 2024 5,952,174; 2025 4,865,764. Returns in the early years may be under-reported. Returns are those reported to UNHCR and can be revised; the plate says nothing about whether returns are lasting or voluntary in each case. The December 2024 change of government in Syria is context, not a measured cause. Licence: UNHCR data, CC BY 4.0.
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