Remittances nearly double in a decade as migrants send home US$729 billion in 2025

UNITED NATIONS, CMC – Migrants sent an estimated US$728.6 billion home to families in low- and middle-income countries, including the Caribbean, last year – nearly double the amount recorded a decade earlier, according to the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

In a report released on Monday titled ‘Sending Money Home 2026: Beyond remittances: From lifeline to resilience – one family at a time’, IFAD said the transfers, known as remittances, grew by 94 per cent between 2016 and 2025, far outpacing the 28 per cent increase in the number of migrants from those countries.

The gap shows that the growth is not simply the result of more people migrating, but also that migrants abroad are sending larger amounts home on average.