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Australia
Australia — forced displacement statistics — 1951–2025.
Most refugees from here are now in CanadaLargest origin of refugees hosted here: Unknown originPeak: 317,000 hosted in 1981
Source: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database (data as of 31 December 2025; retrieved 19 August 2026). UNHCR · CC-BY-4.0
Year-end 0
Not reported
UNHCR footnotes (4)
- All · REF · Now in — The methodology for estimating the number of refugees in Australia is under review and subject to adjustment in future reports. The asylum-seeker figure is based on the number of applications lodged for protection visas.
- All · ASY · Now in — Australia’s figures for asylum-seekers are based on the number of applications lodged for protection visas.
- All · ASY · Now in — Australia's figures for asylum-seekers are based on the number of applications lodged for protection visas.
- All · STA · Now in — Stateless figures in Australia are sourced from the Government. They consist of figures on stateless persons held in detention and those that have been issued or are in an application process for an “Onshore Humanitarian Visa” and have self-reported to be stateless. Australia does not have a separate statelessness status determination procedure and only provides statistics on humanitarian visas. Due to this, the figure reported here does not capture all stateless persons in Australia and is not an estimate of statelessness in Australia. Figures for stateless persons in detention come from the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs and Australian Border Force report on Immigration Detention and Community Statistics Summary 31 January 2022.
1951–2025 time series
Source: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database (data as of 31 December 2025; retrieved 19 August 2026). UNHCR · CC-BY-4.0
Age and sex (0)
Age and sex (2010)
A total of 25,504 was reported for this year, but no age/sex breakdown — common for high-income host countries.
Source: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database (data as of 31 December 2025; retrieved 19 August 2026). UNHCR · CC-BY-4.0
Top countries of origin
Top countries of origin (2000)
| Country | Refugees | Asylum-seekers |
|---|---|---|
| Serbia | 12,046 | 126 |
| Iraq | 10,521 | 358 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 6,269 | 10 |
| Croatia | 4,902 | 13 |
| Afghanistan | 4,358 | 376 |
| Iran | 2,617 | 369 |
| Sudan | 2,872 | 15 |
| Indonesia | 147 | 2,646 |
| Sri Lanka | 2,091 | 528 |
| Somalia | 2,094 | 18 |
Top host countries
Top host countries (2000)
| Country | Refugees | Asylum-seekers |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 0 | 5 |
Source: UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics Database (data as of 31 December 2025; retrieved 19 August 2026). UNHCR · CC-BY-4.0
Sources
| Source | License | data as of | retrieved | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics Database — country list | CC-BY-4.0 | 2026-08-19 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics Database — population figures | CC-BY-4.0 | 2025-12-31 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics Database — demographics | CC-BY-4.0 | 2025-12-31 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| UNHCR (data: IDMC) — IDMC internal displacement figures via UNHCR API | CC-BY-IGO | 2025-12-31 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics Database — solutions | CC-BY-4.0 | 2025-12-31 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics Database — asylum applications | CC-BY-4.0 | 2025-12-31 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| UNHCR — Refugee Population Statistics Database — footnotes | CC-BY-4.0 | 2025-12-31 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| United Nations, DESA, Population Division — World Population Prospects 2024 — total population by sex | CC-BY-3.0-IGO | 2023-07-01 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
| Natural Earth (via world-atlas) — Admin 0 – Countries, 1:50m | Public Domain | 2022-05-01 | 2026-08-19 | up to date |
Snapshot f1a2b53a · Methodology · Boundaries
Data coverage
How complete is the record for this country — metric by metric.
| Value | Hosting / Originating | First reported | First non-zero | Last reported | Years reported | Longest gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refugees | Hosting | 1951 | 1951 | 2025 | 55/75 | 13 yr |
| Refugees | Originating | 2000 | 2002 | 2025 | 26/26 | — |
| Asylum-seekers | Hosting | 1951 | 2000 | 2025 | 55/75 | 13 yr |
| Asylum-seekers | Originating | 2000 | 2000 | 2025 | 26/26 | — |
| Stateless persons | Hosting | 2004 | 2017 | 2025 | 22/22 | — |
| Others of concern | Hosting | 1951 | 2020 | 2025 | 55/75 | 13 yr |
| Returned refugees | Hosting | 1951 | 1993 | 2025 | 55/75 | 13 yr |
A missing year is not zero — it is missing. And the start of counting is not the start of events: several metrics only began collection later (stateless 2004, OIP 2018; the IDP series runs from 1993 and switches to IDMC compilation in 2009).