Where Americans Already Live
Gwendolyn asked one plain question over supper: how many Americans like me already live abroad?
Picture a woman named Gwendolyn, 66, at her kitchen table with her daughter Amara. Gwendolyn asked one plain question over supper: how many Americans like me already live abroad? Amara spent the evening searching and came back with several totals that did not agree. Not one of the pages said who had been counted.
So we looked for a count we could read all the way through. The United Nations keeps a table of how many people born in the United States live in each country. We opened the 2024 edition. Here are nine countries from it.
| People born in the US, living in | 2010 | 2020 | 2024 | Change 2020 to 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico | 731,017 | 799,179 | 823,502 | +3.0% |
| Canada | 304,650 | 267,441 | 256,571 | -4.1% |
| United Kingdom | 194,269 | 229,523 | 243,570 | +6.1% |
| Germany | 110,310 | 144,138 | 152,501 | +5.8% |
| Spain | 35,560 | 53,484 | 68,613 | +28.3% |
| Panama | 11,993 | 16,867 | 25,732 | +52.6% |
| Colombia | 16,846 | 20,944 | 22,519 | +7.5% |
| Costa Rica | 12,492 | 15,209 | 18,354 | +20.7% |
| Portugal | 6,137 | 7,980 | 8,977 | +12.5% |
Amara read the 2024 column out loud. Mexico has 12 times as many US-born residents as Spain and 32 times as many as Panama. Panama and Spain grew fastest between 2020 and 2024. Portugal is small in this table, with 8,977 people in 2024 against 6,137 in 2010.
Gwendolyn frowned. "Those are all ages?"
"All ages," Amara said. "Children as well as adults, and relatives of people who came back. The table counts where people were born, and each country reports it from its own census or register."
"So it is more than the number of retirees."
"A good deal more. And no one gives the retiree number."
One more count, with a caution
A secondary source from September 2026 reports that the Social Security Administration's December 2025 table lists 60,395 people paid in Mexico. Please treat the figure as reported. It counts people with a mailing address abroad. Someone who keeps a US address would not appear in it. Set it beside the 823,502 above and the two numbers describe quite different groups.
What to ask the office
- The State Department, for its total of Americans abroad.
- The host countries, such as Mexico's census office or Spain's register, for their own counts.
You could…
- Open the United Nations migrant-stock tables and look up the country you are curious about.
- Ask the US embassy's American citizens services section in that country what it can say about residents.
- Ask the country's immigration office, or its consulate near you, for the number of US citizens holding resident permits.
- Ask an accountant who works with Americans abroad how the numbers you find could apply to someone in your position.
Gwendolyn took the pencil and wrote three country names on the back of an envelope.
If you live abroad now, which country is it, and how did you first find other Americans there? Tell us in the comments, so the next reader has one more real answer.
Figures are estimates for planning, based on public data. Rules change, so each figure shows the year it applies to; ask the official office before you act.
Sources: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, International Migrant Stock 2024 (Table 1, people born in the United States by country of destination); a September 2026 secondary report of the Social Security Administration's December 2025 table of payments abroad.
Tell us in the comments