ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Remittance inflows to low- and middle-income countries reached $728.6 billion in 2025, nearly doubling over the past decade, according to a new report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) released Monday.
The report, Sending Money Home 2026: Beyond Remittances: From Lifeline to Resilience – One Family at a Time, found that remittance flows increased by 94 percent between 2016 and 2025, outpacing both population growth and the increase in the number of migrants from low- and middle-income countries.
“Approximately 220 million people, migrants and diaspora members, send money home, supporting over 1.1 billion people in low- and middle-income countries,” IFAD Financing Facility for Remittances Manager Pedro de Vasconcelos told Rudaw’s Namo Abdulla on Monday.
“Migrants around the globe have sent $728 billion or $729 billion in remittances to their families, and they've done that $300, $400 at a time, nine to ten times a year,” de Vasconcelos said.
IFAD estimates that 220 million migrants and diaspora members support 1.1 billion relatives, connecting more than 1.3 billion people worldwide, or roughly one in six people.
“This is definitely one of the world's largest and most resilient sources of household income, as you can see,” de Vasconcelos said.
IFAD said remittances help households meet basic needs, build resilience and invest in the future, and can help families access savings, insurance and appropriate credit. The agency stressed, however, that remittances cannot substitute for public investment, social protection or climate finance.
De Vasconcelos said efforts are also needed to reduce the factors that make migration a necessity, particularly in rural areas. By linking people to opportunities such as credit, savings and investment, he said, migration can become more of a choice.
Almost one in three dollars in remittances, or about $233 billion, went to rural areas in 2025, according to IFAD. The agency estimates that recipient families invest about $22 billion annually in rural agrifood systems, supporting agricultural production, rural businesses and employment.
The UN agency also said remittances are now more than four times greater than global official development assistance and exceed total foreign direct investment flowing into low- and middle-income countries.
Remittances have also played an important historical role in Iraqi Kurdistan. A 2007 study by political scientist Denise Natali, published in Third World Quarterly, found that diaspora remittances were an important source of income for households in the region during the economic hardship of the 1990s.
Following the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi Kurdistan was subjected to what researchers describe as a “double embargo” — international sanctions on Iraq alongside an internal economic blockade imposed by Baghdad. The restrictions severely disrupted trade and contributed to economic hardship in the region. The study examines how external aid and changing economic conditions shaped postwar Iraqi Kurdistan.
During the 1990s, as large numbers of Iraqi Kurds migrated abroad, diaspora remittances reached an increasing number of households. The extended-family system of diaspora remittances constituted an important means of providing income to people facing severe economic precariousness.
The precise scale of those historical remittance flows is difficult to establish because much of the money was transferred through informal channels rather than recorded through formal financial institutions.
