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Kenya is the country most dependent on remittances sent from the UK, analysis shows.
11:20, Thu, Feb 12, 2026 Updated: 11:23, Thu, Feb 12, 2026
India and Pakistan received more than £8.4bn from migrant workers based in the UK, analysis shows (Image: Getty)
Migrant workers are sending billions of pounds to their home countries, research shows. Pakistan and India are the top two destinations for cross border fund transfers, according to analysis carried out by money transfer platform TopMoneyCompare.
The number crunching shows Pakistan received £4.24billion in remittances from UK based migrant earners last year, just above India's £4.17bn. In total, more than £8.4bn was sent to these two countries. This may in part be due to Pakistan and India being two of the cheapest destinations in the world to send remittances to. Kenya is the most dependent on remittances from the UK, with 27% of its inflows from Britain, the analysis shows.
Russell Gous, Editor-in-Chief at TopMoneyCompare, said: "It’s fair to say that the larger our overseas-born population, the more UK money is being sent abroad.
"But these flows don’t just go to developing countries. A decent share of UK remittances is going to wealthier economies, driven by property ownership, cross-border families, and people managing finances across more than one country."
Per migrant, the report authors said the picture looks very different, with Bermuda topping the list.
The British Overseas Territory, which has no income tax and a tiny UK-linked population base, saw an average of £26,609 sent per migrant in 2025, according to the analysis.
Belgium (£15,756) and France (£10,918) also received higher per capita amounts, suggesting large remittance flows are not limited to developing countries.
A 'decent' share of remittances are going from the UK to wealthier countries, Russell Gous says (Image: Getty)
The report authors said in many cases these transfers reflect property ownership, cross-border families and wealth being managed across closely linked countries rather than day-to-day financial help.
Mr Gous said for some countries the transfers play a genuinely important role in household finances and local economies. He said in lower-income countries, money sent from the UK can make up a meaningful share of everyday spending on housing costs, education and healthcare.
He added: "Even with net migration falling, we expect remittance volumes to remain high, and potentially continue rising, simply because the overseas-born population in the UK is still large and well established."
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford states that remittances are "difficult" to measure and official data only capture a limited proportion of all transfers.
It says remittances from the UK make up a smaller share of the economy than in many other countries, with transfers equivalent to 0.34% of GDP in 2023.
This placed the UK as 107th out of 148 countries where data were available, according to The Migration Observatory.
The authors of TopMoneyCompare's report compared remittances with aid flows, migrant community sizes and the wider economic context. Data mainly came from World Bank and KNOMAD estimates.
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Migrant population and earnings data were based mainly on Office for National Statistics sources. Aid figures from the Government were also used.
Monetary values were standardised to 2025 equivalents using World Bank growth factors, UK inflation and average salary growth. The figures were then converted to sterling using a 2025 exchange rate.
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