Iranian Diaspora

Iranian diaspora

Map of the Iranian diaspora in the world as of 2021
Total population
around 4,037,258 (2021)
Americas	1,905,813 (47.20%)
Europe	1,184,552 (29.34%)
West Asia and Other (Asia and Oceania)	1,115,572
Languages
Persian Languages of Iran
Religion
Majority: Shia Islam Minority: Sunni Islam Zoroastrianism Christianity Baháʼí Judaism Irreligion

This includes the varying ethnicities of the Iranian people including the following groups: Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Lors, Baluchs, Arabs, Turkomens, Assyrians, and Armenians.

In 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran published statistics, which showed that 4,037,258 Iranians are living abroad, an increase from previous years. Many of them live in North America, Europe, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Australia and the broader Middle East. Other studies have estimated about 1.5 million or fewer Iranians living abroad. Many of them migrated to other countries after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

By 2020s the country witnessed mass waves of immigration out of the country [fa]. With 100% rise just in 2023.A ministry of immigration has been proposed after reports indicated critical statistics mainly because of political instability.

Nearly 60 percent of Iranians abroad have earned at least an undergraduate degree, and have one of the highest rates of self-employment among immigrant groups. Many have founded their own companies, including Isaac Larian, the founder of MGA Entertainment, and Pierre Omidyar, who founded eBay in 1995 in San Jose, California. Iranian households in the United States earn on average $87,288 annually in 2018, and are ranked ninth by income.

According to the Iranian government, 55,686 Iranian students were studying abroad in 2013: 8,883 studied in Malaysia, 7,341 in the United States, 5,638 in Canada, 3,504 in Germany, 3,364 in Turkey, 3,228 in Britain, and the rest in other countries. The Iranian Ministry of Education estimated that between 350,000 and 500,000 Iranians were studying outside Iran as of 2014.

•   Hrant Markarian, Chairman of Armenian Revolutionary Federation
•   Sam Dastyari, Senator
•   Seema Kennedy, Member of the House of Commons
•   Haleh Afshar, Member of the House of Lords
•   David Alliance, Member of the House of Lords
•    Amir Khadir, Member of the National Assembly of Quebec
•    Reza Moridi, Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
•   Majid Jowhari, Member of the Parliament of Canada
•   Ali Ehsassi, Member of the Parliament of Canada
•   Pouria Amirshahi, Former Member of the French National Assembly
•   Mahmoud Khayami, founder of Iran Khodro
•   Pierre Omidyar, investigative journalist for Honolulu Civil Beat and First Look Media, also founder of eBay
•   Patrick Ali Pahlavi, member of the Pahlavi dynasty
•   Yasmin Fahimi, general secretary of the Social Democratic Party
•   Sahra Wagenknecht, Member of the Bundestag and deputy chairperson of the Left Party
•   Omid Nouripour, Member of the Bundestag, (Alliance '90/The Greens)
•   Moshe Katsav, President of Israel
•   Dan Halutz, Chief of General Staff
•   Shaul Mofaz, Minister of Defense
•   Golriz Ghahraman, Member of New Zealand Parliament from the 52nd New Zealand Parliament part of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
•   Farah Karimi, Member of the House of Representatives
•   Mazyar Keshvari, Member of the Storting
•   Ardalan Shekarabi, Minister for Public Administration
•   Maryam Yazdanfar, Member of the Riksdag
•   Reza Khelili Dylami, Member of the Riksdag
•   Goli Ameri, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs
•   Cyrus Amir-Mokri, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions
•    Cyrus Habib, Member of the Washington House of Representatives
•   Azita Raji, United States Ambassador to Sweden
•   Bob Yousefian, Mayor of Glendale
•   Jimmy Delshad, Mayor
•   Ahmed Lari, Member of National Assembly of Kuwait
•   Hassan Jawhar, Member of National Assembly of Kuwait
•   Jenan Boushehri, Member of National Assembly of Kuwait

In 2000, the Iran Press Service reported that Iranian expatriates had invested between $200 and $400 billion in the United States, Europe, and China, but almost nothing in Iran. In Dubai, Iranian expatriates have invested an estimated $200 billion (2006). Migrant Iranian workers abroad remitted less than two billion dollars home in 2006.

High net-worth individuals

National ranking	Name	Citizenship	Net worth (USD)	Source(s) of wealth
1	Pierre Omidyar		12.9 billion	eBay
2	Ghermezian family		4.0 billion	Triple Five Group
3	Farhad Moshiri		2.8 billion	Metalloinvest, Everton
4	Nazarian family		2.0 billion	Qualcomm
5	Vincent & Robert Tchenguiz		1.4 billion	Real Estate
6	Manny Mashouf		1.3 billion	Bebe stores
7	Merage family		1.1 billion	Hot Pockets
8	Nasser David Khalili		1.0 billion	Real Estate
9	Hassan Khosrowshahi		950 million	Future Shop
10	Omid Kordestani		900 million	Google
11	Anousheh Ansari		750 million	Sonus Networks
12	Isaac Larian		723 million	MGA Entertainment
13	Arash Ferdowsi		400 million	Dropbox

Expatriate fund

The fund's stated goal is to attract investment from Iranian expatriates and to use their experience in stimulating foreign investments.

The Iranian diaspora has been commonly defined as a largely people from upper-middle classes,secular and as cultural or nominal Muslims; the majority of them do not take fundamental Islamic rituals, such as daily prayers or fasting, and having largely embraced Western secularism. Some expatriate Iranians consider themselves irreligious, agnostic, or atheist.

In the period between 1961 and 2005, the United States became the main destination of Iranian emigrants. An estimated 378,995 Iranians have immigrated to the United States in that period, where Iranian immigrants have primarily immigrated to California (158,613 Iran-born in 2000), New York (17,323), Texas (15,581), Virginia (10,889), and Maryland (9,733). The Los Angeles Metropolitan Area was estimated to be host to approximately 114,712 Iranian immigrants, earning the Westwood area of Los Angeles the nickname Tehrangeles.

The US Census Bureau's decennial census form does not offer a designation for individuals of Iranian descent, and therefore it is estimated that only a fraction of the total number of Iranians are writing in their ancestry. The 2000 Census Bureau estimates that the Iranian American community (including the US-born children of the Iranian foreign born) numbers around 330,000. Studies using alternative statistical methods have estimated the actual number of Iranian Americans in the range of 691,000 to 1.2 million.

• Demography of Iran
• Foreign relations of Iran
• Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran
• Iran's brain drain
• Iranian nationality law
• Tourism in Iran
• Visa requirements for Iranian citizens