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.
Bangladesh's published record counts 61,983 US-born residents (UN DESA estimate · 2024). Bangladesh publishes no count of residents holding US citizenship, so that second measure is not shown here.
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.
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 — and where the only figure available is an estimate, it is labelled as one. How openly each country reports ›
How Bangladesh Counts Americans
The One CountOne "US presence," one published figure — labelled as an estimate where it is one.
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.
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.
| Figure | Value | Vintage | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| US-born residents | 61,983 | 2024 | UN DESA |
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.
How Far to Trust These Figures
The Publishing RecordWhat Bangladesh publishes, how often it publishes, and the sources behind every number on this page.
- Inflows
- Permits
- US-Born
- Citizens
- Naturalizations
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.
Every figure on this page comes from one of the publishers below. Links go to the authority and, where stable, straight to the dataset.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick AnswersEvery answer is drawn from the official record, from the same sources cited across this page.
How many Americans live in Bangladesh?
Does Bangladesh recognize dual citizenship with the United States?
Where do the figures for Americans in Bangladesh come from?
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.