Economy · Remittance inflows · Zambia
Zambia’s remittance inflows rose to $0.4bn in 2025.
$0.4bn
2025
Up $0.07bn from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
$0.4bn
What it is. Remittance inflows add up the money that people living abroad send home to relatives and other households in Zambia, plus the wages of workers who spend short periods overseas, all converted to US dollars. The total is built from central bank and balance of payments reporting, and it only covers transfers that pass through recorded channels. Cash carried across the border or passed through informal networks is likely to be under-counted. Because the figure is in current dollars, exchange rate moves and price changes affect it alongside the amount actually sent.
Higher is better. Higher is better because remittances bring in foreign currency that households can spend directly and that adds to the country's external earnings. The latest figure for 2025 is $0.4bn, up from $0.33bn a year earlier, a rise of 20.7%. That puts 2025 at the top of the range since 2016, equal to the window high of $0.4bn. The low in that span was $0.04bn in 2016, so inflows are now about ten times their starting level.
Why it matters. For Zambian households with relatives abroad, these transfers help cover food, school fees and rent, and they arrive in dollars that hold their value better than kwacha. For the state and for firms, a larger flow adds to the supply of foreign currency in the economy. At $0.4bn, it is still a modest sum next to the country's main export earnings.
| Period | Remittance inflows · Zambia |
|---|---|
| 2016 | $0.04bn |
| 2017 | $0.09bn |
| 2018 | $0.11bn |
| 2019 | $0.1bn |
| 2020 | $0.13bn |
| 2021 | $0.24bn |
| 2022 | $0.24bn |
| 2023 | $0.25bn |
| 2024 | $0.33bn |
| 2025 | $0.4bn |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Remittance inflows, Zambia, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/remittance-inflows/zambia
Data insights · Worked out from the published figures
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Working this out from the published figures…
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Methodology
Personal remittances received, current US dollars. Unit: USD bn.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.