Share of Illegal Immigrants Across 9 Developed Countries

What We’re Showing

This graphic shows the share of immigrants without legal status in nine selected countries. The data comes from Kierans & Vargas-Silva (2024) and UN DESA (2020), and was compiled by Our World in Data.

Key Takeaways

• The U.S. leads with 22% of immigrants lacking legal status.
• Germany and U.K. follow, with undocumented populations of 4% and 7%, respectively.
• Countries like the Netherlands, Poland, and Canada maintain low proportions of undocumented immigrants (2-3%).