Personal remittance inflow towards Middle East and Central Asia as a whole 1970-2023

The numbers provided have been calculated by Statista, using definitions of remittances set in BPM 6 - the Sixth Edition of the IMF's Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual. The IMF used the following remittance definitions:

1. Personal remittances: The sum of "personal transfers", "compensation of employees" and "capital transfers between households";
2. Total remittances: The sum of "1. Personal remittances" with "social benefits";
3. Total remittances and transfers to Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISHs): The sum of "2. Total remittances" with "current transfers to NPISHs" and "capital transfers to NPISHs"

The categories of "personal transfers", "compensation of employees", "capital transfers between households", "social benefits", "current transfers to NPISHs" and "capital transfers to NPISHs" are all found in the IMF's Balance of Payments (BOP) database. Both the World Bank - and its KNOMAD department - adopted this IMF database in all their reportings on remittances.

Only the first two IMF categories - "personal transfers" and "compensation of employees" - are reported, though. All other categories are supplementary, meaning data is often not available or researched. This effectively means remittance data is incomplete - as it only covers (parts of) 1. Personal remittances.

Due to this lack of additional information, calculations on 1. Personal remittances and 2. Total remittances regularly lead to the same results. However, sources tend to write "total remittances" when the figures technically refer to "personal remittances". To avoid this confusion, Statista follows the BPM 6 wording of "personal remittances", unless a country does provide additional data that would lead to different figures that would be accounted for in "total remittances".