Brazil: Country Report | 2024
AI Generated Analysis based on UNHCR Forced Displacement Statisitics.
Executive Summary
Executive Summary: Key Trends in Forcibly Displaced Populations in Brazil
A Mounting Humanitarian Challenge
Displacement in Brazil has reached a new and sobering record, with the population of forcibly displaced and stateless people surging to 832,221. This represents a stark 17 per cent increase in just one year, a trajectory overwhelmingly driven by the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. The vast majority are not formally recognized refugees but fall under other categories of international protection, highlighting the critical importance of alternative legal pathways. With a youthful, working-age demographic, this growing population represents both significant potential and an urgent need for investment in integration, livelihoods, and education.
A System Under Immense Pressure
As a key host nation in the Americas, Brazil continues to shoulder immense responsibility. This burden is highly concentrated, with the response to the Venezuelan outflow defining the country’s humanitarian landscape and straining national systems to their limit. The asylum system is a critical case in point, with a growing backlog forcing applicants to wait an average of 1,189 days—over three years—for a decision. This prolonged uncertainty severely hampers the ability of individuals and families to achieve stability and meaningfully contribute to their host communities, underscoring the need for greater international support and responsibility-sharing.
The Alarming Gap Between Protection and Solutions
Perhaps the most alarming trend is the widening chasm between the provision of legal protection and the availability of durable solutions. While tens of thousands of individuals are granted refugee status or other forms of protection, access to pathways for lasting stability—such as local integration, resettlement, or voluntary repatriation—has fallen to virtually zero in recent years. This reality leaves a growing population in a state of protracted limbo: legally safe from refoulement but unable to fully rebuild their lives. Bridging this gap is not merely a logistical challenge; it is a humanitarian imperative that requires a renewed global commitment to creating tangible futures for the displaced.
Population Overview
Population Overview: The Americas
By mid-2024, the population of forcibly displaced and stateless persons in Brazil continued its significant upward trajectory, reaching 832,221. This constitutes a substantial rise of over 122,600 individuals, or 17 per cent, compared to the same period in 2023, underscoring the country’s growing role as a key host nation in the Americas.
Behind these stark numbers, the data reveals a population composition heavily shaped by the ongoing displacement from Venezuela. The largest single group consists of other people in need of international protection, which grew by 28 per cent to reach 464,395. This category, alongside a substantial number of asylum-seekers with pending claims (243,021), forms the vast majority of persons of concern. While the number of recognized refugees under the 1951 Convention also saw a modest increase to 75,629, the figures clearly show that alternative legal stay arrangements are the primary protection mechanism for those fleeing the crisis in Venezuela. A drilldown into the origins of the recognized refugee population confirms this trend, with 141,269 individuals from Venezuela, a figure that vastly outnumbers all other nationalities combined.
The demographic profile of this growing population highlights both its potential and its vulnerability. The population is markedly youthful, with a wide base of children and adolescents and the largest cohort composed of working-age adults (18-59 years). With a near-symmetrical balance between males and females, this profile points to a significant need for programming focused on employment, livelihood opportunities, and access to education. The persistent growth in displacement, coupled with a complete absence of recorded voluntary returns, signals a protracted situation requiring sustained investment in local integration and comprehensive protection services to support both the displaced and their host communities.
Demographics
AI Insight: Treemap of Population of Concern types in Brazil, where the total of 796,000 individuals is primarily composed of ‘Venezuelans displaced abroad’ and ‘Others of concern’., This treemap visualizes the breakdown of the 796,000 individuals classified as populations of concern in Brazil as of 2024. The data is highly concentrated in a few categories, highlighting specific displacement crises affecting the region.
The detailed breakdown of the population groups is as follows: - Venezuelans displaced abroad: This is the largest group, with 464,395 individuals, representing over 58% of the total. This reflects the significant and ongoing displacement from Venezuela into neighboring countries, with Brazil being a primary destination. - Others of concern: The second-largest category consists of 165,548 individuals. This classification is used for people who are in a refugee-like situation but have not been formally recognized as such, often for statelessness or other protection needs. - Asylum-seekers: There are 150,052 individuals with pending asylum claims, indicating a substantial number of people awaiting formal protection status. - Refugees: A smaller but significant group of 15,487 individuals have been formally granted refugee status under the 1951 Convention. - Stateless persons: There are 496 individuals identified as stateless. - Returned Refugees and Returned IDPs: The data shows zero individuals in these categories, indicating no recorded voluntary repatriations within this dataset.
Statistically, the distribution is heavily skewed. The largest group (464,395) is nearly three times the size of the next largest, and the median population size is only 496, underscoring the disparity between the few large groups and the several smaller ones. This composition directs UNHCR’s operational focus in Brazil towards managing the large-scale Venezuelan influx and processing a high volume of asylum claims.
AI Insight: Population pyramid of age and gender distribution for 754,946 forcibly displaced and stateless persons in Brazil, where the population is youthful with the largest cohort being working-age adults (18-59 years) and a near-equal distribution between males and females., This population pyramid illustrates the age and gender demographics of 754,946 refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons, and other persons of concern in Brazil as of 2024. The data provides 100% gender disaggregation.
The horizontal bars represent age cohorts, while the length of the bars indicates the percentage of the total population for each gender, with females on one side and males on the other.
Key Statistical Observations: - Overall Structure: The pyramid has a wide base and middle, tapering towards the top, which is characteristic of an expansive or youthful population structure. - Gender Distribution: There is a near-symmetrical balance between the male and female populations across all age groups. On average, males constitute a slightly higher proportion per age group (mean of 8.52%) compared to females (mean of 8.15%). - Age Cohorts: The largest single demographic group is the working-age population (18-59 years), which comprises approximately 23.3% of the male population and 22.3% of the female population. The child and adolescent cohorts (0-4, 5-11, and 12-17 years) are also significant, reinforcing the youthful nature of the population. The elderly cohort (60+ years) is the smallest, representing less than 1% for both genders.
In conclusion, the demographic profile of forcibly displaced and stateless persons in Brazil is dominated by a young, working-age population with a balanced gender ratio. This highlights a significant need for programming related to employment, education, and child protection.
Trends Over Time
AI Insight: Column chart of population types in Brazil from 2019 to 2024, in thousands, where the ‘Others of concern’ category constitutes the vast majority of the total population throughout the period., This column chart details the composition of UNHCR’s persons of concern in Brazil, showing the number of people (in thousands) for six different population types annually from 2019 to 2024. The population types include Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Stateless persons, and Others of concern, among others. The data reveals a significant disparity in scale between categories. The values range from zero to a maximum of 464,395 people in a single category for a given year. The statistical distribution is heavily right-skewed, with a mean of approximately 89,657 and a median of 16,670, indicating that a few data points are exceptionally large. This suggests that one population type, likely ‘Others of concern’ (which often includes Venezuelans displaced abroad), dominates the figures each year, while other groups like refugees or stateless persons represent much smaller numbers. The chart effectively visualizes the scale and changing composition of the displaced population in Brazil over this six-year period. Notably, the data indicates zero individuals recorded as ‘Returned Refugees’ or ‘Returned IDPs’ for all years shown.
AI Insight: Bar chart of changes in population groups in Brazil between 2023 and 2024, where people in need of international protection saw the largest increase, while the number of stateless people decreased., This bar chart provides a statistical overview of the changes in UNHCR’s populations of concern in Brazil, comparing mid-year data from 2023 to 2024. It details absolute and percentage changes for five distinct groups and a total population count.
Overall, the total population of concern in Brazil increased significantly, rising from 709,584 in 2023 to 832,221 in 2024, an increase of 122,637 people (+17%).
The most substantial changes occurred in the following groups:
Population Increases: * Other people in need of international protection: This group saw the largest absolute and percentage increase, growing by 101,314 people from 363,081 in 2023 to 464,395 in 2024. This represents a 28% rise and accounts for the majority of the overall increase. * Asylum-seekers: The number of asylum-seekers grew by 17,440 people, from 225,581 to 243,021, an 8% increase. * Venezuelans displaced abroad: This population increased by 3,206 individuals, from 45,052 to 48,258, a 7% increase. * Refugees: The refugee population experienced a modest growth of 1,220 people, rising from 74,409 to 75,629, a 2% increase.
Population Decreases: * Stateless persons: This was the only category to see a decrease. The number of stateless persons fell by 143, from 1,061 in 2023 to 918 in 2024, a 13% reduction.
The data highlights Brazil’s growing role as a host country for displaced populations in the Americas. The significant increase in ‘Other people in need of international protection’ is particularly noteworthy, likely reflecting government policies that provide alternative forms of legal stay and protection for individuals fleeing regional crises.
AI Insight: Horizontal bar chart of refugees in Brazil by top 9 countries of origin in 2024, where Venezuela is the largest source country with 141,269 refugees, vastly outnumbering all others., This horizontal bar chart details the top nine countries of origin for refugees in Brazil as of 2024, along with an ‘Others’ category. The visualization clearly shows that the refugee population is dominated by a single country of origin.
Venezuela is the primary source, accounting for 141,269 refugees. This number is substantially higher than all other countries combined, illustrating the significant impact of the Venezuelan displacement crisis on Brazil.
Following Venezuela, there is a steep decline in the number of refugees from other countries. The subsequent countries of origin have populations in the low thousands. According to the statistical summary, the median number of refugees across the categories is 2,618, and the smallest group among the top origins numbers 423 people. The total number of refugees represented in these ten categories is 257,080. The extreme difference between the maximum value (141,269) and the median highlights the severe right-skewed distribution of the data.
Geography & Movements
Geography & Movements: Concentrated Displacement in the Americas
The geography of displacement in the Americas continues to be shaped by complex and highly concentrated population movements, with Brazil emerging as a critical nexus, functioning as both a major country of asylum and a country of origin. The data reveals two distinct but parallel stories of profound concentration, which place significant and specific pressures on national protection systems and host communities.
As a host country, Brazil’s humanitarian landscape is overwhelmingly defined by the outflow from Venezuela. An analysis of refugee populations in Brazil as of 2024 shows that of the top nine nationalities, individuals from Venezuela number 141,269, a figure that substantially overshadows all other groups combined. This trend is not recent. The evolution of forcibly displaced populations between 2019 and 2025 illustrates an exponential growth of the Venezuelan cohort, which reached a peak of 680,145. This contrasts sharply with the relatively stable and far smaller populations from other origins such as Haiti and Cuba, demonstrating that Brazil’s protection and integration capacity is predominantly geared towards responding to a single, large-scale crisis.
Conversely, the pattern for forcibly displaced people from Brazil presents a mirror image of concentration. While people of concern from Brazil are found in at least 30 countries, their protection needs are highly localized. The data reveals that one primary destination country hosts 326,868 individuals, a staggering outlier when compared to the median of just 7,390 across the top ten destination countries. This vast disparity underscores that the responsibility for protecting and finding solutions for displaced Brazilians is not widely shared but is instead shouldered by a single principal host nation. Behind these stark numbers lies a reality where humanitarian responses—both within Brazil and for those originating from it—must be tailored to specific, highly concentrated corridors of displacement.
AI Insight: Choropleth map of destination countries for people of concern from Brazil as of 2024, where the population is highly concentrated in a small number of countries, with one country hosting over 73,000 individuals., This world map visualizes the distribution of refugees, asylum-seekers, and other people of concern originating from Brazil across various destination countries as of 2024. Countries are color-coded to represent the total number of these individuals they host.
Statistical analysis reveals a highly skewed distribution among the 30 countries with available data. The total number of individuals ranges from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 73,127. The median number of people hosted is only 38, indicating that half of the destination countries have very small populations of concern from Brazil. The 75th percentile is 322, further emphasizing that the vast majority of host countries have relatively low numbers. The mean of 3,030 is significantly inflated by the outlier country hosting 73,127 people, which accounts for a substantial portion of the total population. This demonstrates that the displacement and protection needs of people from Brazil are concentrated in a very limited number of primary destination countries.
