International Migrants Day 2026 is on Friday

About International Migrants Day

International Migrants Day looks at migration from the point of view of the people who move: workers, students, families joining relatives and people pushed out by conflict, disasters or poverty. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN's migration agency, defines a migrant broadly as anyone who moves away from their usual home, within a country or across a border, whatever their legal status, reason for moving or length of stay.

The UN General Assembly proclaimed the day in resolution 55/93, adopted on December 4, 2000. It invited governments and international and non-governmental organizations to mark it by sharing information on migrants' human rights and freedoms and by planning ways to protect them. The date recalls December 18, 1990, when the Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. That treaty entered into force on July 1, 2003.

In December 2018, an intergovernmental conference in Marrakech, Morocco, adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, a non-binding framework for cooperation between countries. The UN and IOM use International Migrants Day to point to its goals, such as regular pathways for migration, fewer deaths in transit and fair treatment at work.

IOM leads the day's campaign each year. The theme for 2025 was "My Great Story: Cultures and Development," which focused on how migrants' personal journeys feed into economic growth and cultural life in the places they come from and the places they settle.

Sources: United Nations: International Migrants Day, United Nations: International Migrants Day background, General Assembly resolution 55/93 (2000), UN Treaty Collection: International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers. How we check dates.

How to mark International Migrants Day

• Ask a relative, neighbor or coworker who moved from another country to share their story, if they're happy to, and listen to what the journey involved.
• Volunteer with a local group that teaches language classes or helps newcomers with paperwork, housing or job searches.
• Read up on the migrant workers' rights convention and check whether your country is a party to it.
• Shop at or eat at a business run by immigrants in your area.
• Visit a museum or archive exhibit on the migration history of your own city or region.

International Migrants Day dates