How Many Americans Live in Jamaica
Jamaica publishes no count of its American residents in any form this project could use. Even its census reports the foreign-born only as a single total.
Jamaica's published record counts 6,286 US-born residents (UN DESA estimate · 2019). Jamaica 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 Jamaica'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 Jamaica, 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 Jamaica publishes, what it does not, and how far the published record can be trusted.
Why Jamaica'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 Jamaica itself publishes, read under the same rules applied to every country in the project. Where Jamaica 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 Jamaica 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 Jamaica research, drawn from the official record.
- Jamaica does not maintain publicly available nationality-disaggregated migration statistics for U.S. nationals across most core migration domains.
- No official datasets were identified for U.S. citizens stock, U.S.-born stock, residence permits, work permits, or naturalizations granted to U.S. nationals.
- Available census and demographic datasets only report aggregate foreign-born population totals without country-specific breakdowns.
- Migration-related information relies primarily on indirect or external sources, particularly UN migrant stock estimates rather than Jamaican administrative records.
- UN estimates suggest a relatively stable U.S.-associated migrant stock between 2010 and 2019, fluctuating between approximately 6,193 and 6,329 individuals.
- Visitor flow information available through the Jamaica Open Data Portal lacks sufficient metadata and temporal identifiers, limiting its analytical value.
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 | 6,286 | UN DESA estimate · 2019 | 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 Jamaica 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 Jamaica?
Does Jamaica recognize dual citizenship with the United States?
Where do the figures for Americans in Jamaica 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.