Medium confidence · transparency 2.0/5
How Many Americans Live in Bangladesh 🇧🇩
Bangladesh appears to hold one of Asia's larger US-born populations, most plausibly the American-born children of its own diaspora coming home. No Bangladeshi agency publishes a count; the figure comes from UN records.
173.6M
Bangladesh's Population
The Point of Reference
61,983
Born in the US
BBS · 2024
Born in the US, as a Share of Bangladesh
0.04%
61,983 ÷ 174,000,000
The American Emigration Revue counts US citizensPeople holding United States citizenship, as counted by Bangladesh's own official records. A separate population from US-born residents; the two are never added. Definitions ›, US-born residentsPeople born in the United States living in Bangladesh, whatever citizenship they hold today. A separate population from US citizens; the two are never added. Definitions ›, naturalizations and long-term permits from official government sources, with every figure cited. This page sets out what Bangladesh publishes, what it does not, and how far the published record can be trusted.
Every figure is shown with the year its source published it.
Years to naturalize
5 yrs
minimum residency requirement
01
Why Bangladesh's Records, Not Washington's
The ContextThe context every page needs: who counts Americans abroad, and who doesn't.
The United States publishes no count of its own citizens abroad. Its best federal figure, 3.3 million Americans worldwide, is a statistical model built to size the overseas electorate, and the same model said 4.4 million two years earlier. The Census Bureau decided in 1976 to exclude private Americans abroad from the decennial enumeration (overseas federal employees and military are still counted). What Washington publishes instead is fragments: Social Security checks mailed to foreign addresses, tax returns claiming foreign income, quarterly lists of people who gave up their citizenship. See what each federal source actually counts ›
So this project counts from the receiving side. Every figure on this page comes from records Bangladesh itself publishes, read under the same rules applied to every country in the project. Where Bangladesh publishes, it is counted and cited. Where it does not, the gap is shown rather than filled: no estimates, no models. How openly each country reports ›
02
How Bangladesh Counts Americans
The One CountOne "US presence," one official count. The other measures on this page answer different questions.
US-Born Headline61,983
US-born residents · BBS 2024
03
What the Research Found
The FindingsFindings from the Bangladesh research, drawn from the official record.
›Bangladesh destination has a separately listed United States origin row in the UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024 bilateral matrix. Time series 1990 to 2024: 28,559 / 30,085 / 31,610 / 37,560 / 43,455 / 46,008 / 45,115 / 61,983.
›Bangladesh's dual-citizenship framework is anchored in two primary instruments retrieved in body text, not in a 2017 amendment.
›No "Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2017" exists in the bdlaws primary-text database. The visible amendment trail to the 1972 P.O. is Act V of 1973 (inserting Articles 2A and 2B), Ordinance VII of 1978 (substituting Article 2B in its current form), and Act LVIII of 1990 (inserting Articles 1A and 4A).
›BBS 2022 Population and Housing Census thematic tabulation at country-pair × United-States granularity could not be located on the public-facing BBS pages checked across two retrieval passes (2026-05-03 and 2026-05-06).
›Department of Immigration and Passports - access status and data picture. The main passport.gov.bd domain was unreachable on both retrieval passes; the alternative dip.gov.bd domain was reachable and did not expose nationality-disaggregated visa, permit, or residence-document issuance / stock statistics on the pages …
›Reverse-flow context: Bangladesh Bank wage-earner remittance series is reachable; the United States is consistently a top source country of remittances to Bangladesh. This is the inverse direction (Bangladeshi-Americans sending money home) and is included as bilateral context only.
What the Public Record Says
Scale of US populationSubstantial cross-source. UN DESA International Migrant Stock 2024 reports 61,983 US-born residents in Bangladesh at mid-2024.
Trend (permits)Not published at US-disaggregated granularity. The main passport.gov.bd domain was unreachable on both retrieval passes; the alternative dip.gov.bd domain was reachable and did not expose nationality-disaggregated permit or residence-document statistics on the pages checked.
Trend (residents)UN DESA mid-year estimates show steady growth: 28,559 (1990) → 43,455 (2010) → 45,115 (2020) → 61,983 (2024), with a 37.4 per cent jump from 2020 to 2024.
Main driversIndeterminate from public data. The size of the US-origin stock is plausibly attributable to Bangladeshi-American children-of-diaspora returning, but this attribution is explanatory inference rather than a sourced UN DESA tabulation.
Settlement patternNot directly observable. The conditional dual-citizenship regime under Article 2B(2) of the 1972 P.O. suggests that some US-affiliated Bangladeshi-origin residents may hold or seek Bangladeshi citizenship status (whether by descent, by Dual Nationality Certificate, or by naturalization), but no public source identified in this research window quantifies that cohort or separates it by pathway.
Data transparency2.0 out of 5 (medium confidence) — how much Bangladesh publishes about resident Americans, how often, and how easily the figures can be checked. Scored under How Far to Trust These Figures below.
04
The Figures as Data
The EvidenceMachine-readable copy of the figures on this page, each with the year its source published it. Free to download and reuse with attribution.
Key Figures as Data
Bangladesh · every figure with the year its source published it
| Figure | Value | Vintage | Publisher |
|---|
| US-born residents | 61,983 | 2024 | BBS |
Vintage is the year the publishing authority reported the figure. A dash means the year or publisher is not yet recorded in our dataset for that figure; the Sources and Datasets section below names every publisher behind this page.
05
How Far to Trust These Figures
The Publishing RecordWhat Bangladesh publishes, how often it publishes, and the sources behind every number on this page.
What We Know · What’s Missing
Medium confidence · transparency 2.0/5published every yearone-off figurenot published
The gaps: Published as a regular series: US-born residents. Not published: resident US citizens, annual arrivals, naturalizations, residence or work permits: those gaps set the grade; they do not make the published figures wrong.
Sources & Datasets
7 publishing authoritiesEvery figure on this page comes from one of the publishers below. Links go to the authority and, where stable, straight to the dataset.
06
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick AnswersEvery answer is drawn from the official record, from the same sources cited across this page.
Does Bangladesh recognize dual citizenship with the United States?
Bangladesh recognizes dual citizenship with the United States only in limited cases.Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)
Where do the figures for Americans in Bangladesh come from?
Every figure on this page comes from Bangladesh's own official publishers: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and Department of Immigration and Passports. These are counts those bodies published themselves, not estimates or projections. Where Bangladesh publishes nothing, the page says so rather than filling the gap. Bangladesh's published record scores 2.0 out of 5 for transparency, which measures how much it publishes, how often, and how easily the figures can be checked.Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)
Edited by
Daniel Atz, Founder and Editor in Chief.
The full series, every year, every country
The public view shows a limited year window for each series. Researchers and journalists can request access to the complete annual record for every country in the project.
© 2026, American Emigration Revue. Every figure from a named official source.