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The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide fell to 117.8 million at the end of 2025, marking the first annual decline in a decade, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.
The total dropped by 5.4 million from a year earlier, according to the annual report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR.
The agency said the number of people driven from their homes by war, violence and persecution remained “unacceptably high” and called for stronger efforts to reduce long-term displacement over the next decade.
UNHCR attributed the decline largely to a sharp increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced people who returned to their places of origin.
A total of 14.7 million displaced people returned home during 2025, including 4.4 million refugees who crossed international borders to return to their countries.
The refugee return figure was the second-highest recorded since UNHCR began collecting the data 60 years ago.
U.N. refugee chief Barham Salih said more than 90% of refugee returns in 2025 were concentrated in Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria.
He warned, however, that many people returned under pressure rather than because conditions had become safe and stable.
Returnees went back to countries where insecurity continued, infrastructure had been damaged and basic services and economic opportunities remained limited, he said.
“Returns that are not safe are not a solution,” Salih said. “They risk becoming the beginning of a new displacement cycle.”
At the end of 2025, 41.6 million displaced people were classified as refugees, the report said.
Nearly 5.4 million people crossed borders and became refugees during the year.
About 60% of those newly displaced refugees came from eight countries, including nearly 1 million from Sudan and almost 800,000 from Ukraine.
The report also highlighted conflicts that have caused large-scale displacement since the beginning of 2026.
The Middle East war launched by the U.S. and Israel in February forced 3.2 million people from their homes in Iran alone, according to the agency.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March displaced more than 1 million people.
The conflicts in Iran and Lebanon also prompted refugees hosted in those countries to return to their countries of origin, often under difficult conditions.
Those returns included people going back to Syria and Afghanistan.
UNHCR expressed concern over the decline in opportunities for refugees to resettle in third countries.
The agency estimated that 2.9 million refugees needed resettlement.
The number of available resettlement places reached 188,800 in 2024, the highest level in four decades, but fell by more than half to 81,800 in 2025.
The report linked the decline partly to a sharp reduction in the number of refugees accepted by the U.S.
“The gap between places and needs is enormous and has been widening,” UNHCR said.
Salih, a former Iraqi president who was once a refugee, warned that displacement was increasingly lasting for years or decades.
He said 70% of refugees were living in prolonged displacement situations.
Salih called for international support for a new initiative intended to reduce long-term displacement and dependence on humanitarian aid.
“Humanitarian assistance was designed for emergencies,” he said. “It was never intended to sustain generations of people indefinitely.”
The initiative aims to cut the number of refugees in long-term displacement by half over the next decade.
It would seek to expand opportunities for voluntary return, third-country resettlement and humanitarian visas.
Salih said he hoped governments would support the plan and recognize that a more sustainable approach was possible.
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