Students abroad: the numbers
How many students from India and Bangladesh study abroad, where, and in which subjects. Every figure below names what it measures, the period it covers and its original source.
Four different measures — never add them together.
Enrolments: students registered at a university at a point in time (HESA, Destatis, Open Doors).
OPT participants: in the USA, graduates on Optional Practical Training work permits. Open Doors counts them in its totals although they are no longer attending classes.
Visa grants: visas issued in a year (UK Home Office). Not the number of students in the country.
Government estimates: India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) compiles counts from its missions, including school pupils.
India: how many, and where
MEA, as on 1 January 2025: 18,82,318 Indian students abroad in 153 countries. This total includes 6,28,305 school pupils; the figure for universities and other tertiary institutions is 12,54,013 (12.54 lakh). The MEA table gives no notes on how missions collected the numbers [1].
Indian students at universities, by country (MEA, 1 January 2025) [1]:
* MEA's Germany figure (49,483) equals Germany's official count for winter semester 2023/24 [12], so it is about a year older than the date of the table.
USA
| Measure | Figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Doors total (enrolled + OPT) | 3,63,019 Indian students; India is the largest source country | 2024/25 | IIE Open Doors [2] [4] |
| of which enrolled | 2,19,279: 1,77,892 graduate, 40,135 undergraduate, 1,252 non-degree | 2024/25 | [2] |
| of which OPT participants | 1,43,740 graduates on work permits, not attending classes | 2024/25 | [2] |
| SEVIS active records | 4,22,335 F-1/M-1 records with Indian citizenship. Counts records, not people; one student can have more than one | Calendar year 2024 | US ICE [6] |
| New international enrolment, all countries | Down 17% in autumn 2025 (Fall Snapshot of 825+ institutions) | Autumn 2025 | [4] |
UK
| Measure | Figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Study visas granted to Indian main applicants | 82,523 — 23% of all 3,65,868; down 16% | Year ending June 2026 | Home Office [7] |
| Graduate-visa extensions granted to Indians | 64,495 | Year ending June 2026 | Home Office [7] |
| Enrolments of students from India | 1,46,480 (21.4% of international students) — not yet checked at source: HESA's site could not be opened by our checker; figure as cited from HESA by Wikipedia | 2024/25 | HESA [8]; cited in [9] |
Germany
| Measure | Figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| International students from India | About 69,000; India is the largest country of origin | Winter semester 2025/26 | DAAD/DZHW, Wissenschaft weltoffen 2026 [10] |
| Exact figure reported in the media | 69,816 (+17.5%), attributed to DAAD — not found in a DAAD publication | Winter semester 2025/26 | [13] |
| Indian students (Bachelor's, Master's, PhD) | 59,419 (semester not stated by DAAD India; published September 2025) | 2025 report | DAAD India [11] |
| Foreign students with Indian citizenship (official) | 49,483 | Winter semester 2023/24 | Destatis [12] |
Other destinations, and why some are small
MEA, as on 1 January 2025. Universities and schools are counted separately [1]:
| Country | University/tertiary | School | Why students go — or don't |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 1,38,579 | 57,529 | English-taught degrees and post-study work rights. |
| Russia | 27,000 | 222 | Mostly medicine (MBBS). New departures rose from 25,503 in 2023 to 31,444 in 2024 [20]. |
| Kyrgyzstan / Georgia | 16,500 / 16,000 | 50 / 20 | Mainly medicine. |
| Ireland | 10,000 | 10,000 | English-taught, EU member. |
| UAE | 6,507 | 2,47,325 | Mostly children of Indian families living there. Dubai's universities had 42,026 international students in 2024/25, 43% from India [19]. |
| China | 5,330 | 9 | Once a major MBBS destination; Covid visa bans stranded thousands, clinical training is in Chinese, and only 16% of graduates from China's 45 approved medical schools passed India's licensing exam in 2015–21 [21]. |
| Singapore | 3,250 | 30,000 | Few university places; NUS and NTU are highly selective. |
| Japan | 1,532 | 1,909 | Few English-taught degrees; language is the main barrier. |
Bangladesh
| Measure | Figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bangladeshi students in the USA (Open Doors total) | 20,156, 9th largest source country; enrolled 17,166 (13,016 graduate, 4,041 undergraduate, 109 non-degree) + 2,990 on OPT | 2024/25 | IIE Open Doors [3] |
| Bangladeshi students abroad, all countries | At least 49,151 (UNESCO) — a historical estimate, not a current total; largest hosts UAE 11,157, USA 8,665, Malaysia 6,180 | 2022 | UNESCO, as reported by The Daily Star [16] |
| Same, OECD estimate | About 52,800 | 2022 | OECD, as reported by ICEF Monitor [17] |
| UK student-visa refusal rate | 22% of Bangladeshi applications refused; several UK universities paused or limited recruitment | Year to September 2025 | Reported by TBS News [18] |
Where do Indian students study, by subject?
Two different kinds of information sit side by side below, and they must not be confused:
- What is published about Indian students. Only a few broad figures exist. DAAD India's German shares — engineering incl. biology-related fields 60%, social sciences/economics/management 21%, mathematics/natural sciences 18%, other 6% — add up to 105%, so they cannot be read as separate slices of one whole until DAAD explains the overlap [11].
- Illustrative examples, not enrolment. Universities that QS ranks highly for the subject in 2026 [23]. This says nothing about how many Indian students attend them. Rankings favour large research universities; many excellent, more affordable options rank lower.
| Subject | What is published about Indian students | Illustrative only: highly ranked for the subject (QS 2026 rank) |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering | Germany: 60% of Indian students in “Engineering incl. biology-related fields” (DAAD India, 2025) [11]. Engineering and computer science together: about 26,000 Indian students in Germany in 2024 (CHE/HSI-Monitor on Destatis data, reported by VDE) [14]. | QS Engineering & Technology 2026 UK: Oxford (4), Cambridge (5), Imperial (7) Germany: TUM (16), KIT (=42), TU Berlin (=42) USA: MIT (1), Stanford (2), UC Berkeley (6) [24] |
| Computer science | UK 2023/24: computing and IT plus health and medicine together drew nearly one in four Indian students (ApplyBoard analysis of UK data) [15]. USA: no current Indian split; in 2018/19 nearly 70% studied maths, computer science or engineering [5]. | QS Computer Science & Information Systems 2026 UK: Oxford (=4), Cambridge (8), Imperial (12) Germany: TUM (26), TU Berlin (=76), LMU Munich (=91) USA: MIT (1), Stanford (2), Carnegie Mellon (3) [24] |
| Business and management | Germany: 21% in “Social Sciences/Economics/Management” combined (DAAD India, 2025) [11]. No published Indian-only figure for the UK or USA. | QS Business & Management Studies 2026 UK: Oxford (5), Cambridge (6), London Business School (9) Germany: TUM (=91) USA: Harvard (1), Stanford (2), MIT (3) [24] |
| Chemistry | No published Indian-only figure. Germany's “Mathematics/Natural Sciences” group (18%) includes chemistry [11]. | QS Chemistry 2026 UK: Cambridge (=2), Oxford (5), Imperial (10) Germany: TUM (=25), KIT (=50), LMU Munich (=55) USA: MIT (1), Harvard (=2), Stanford (4) [24] |
| Physics | No published Indian-only figure. Included in Germany's “Mathematics/Natural Sciences” group [11]. | QS Physics & Astronomy 2026 UK: Oxford (3), Cambridge (5), Imperial (12) Germany: TUM (27), LMU Munich (=39), Heidelberg (=43) USA: MIT (1), Harvard (2), Stanford (4) [24] |
| Biology and life sciences | No clean figure: DAAD India counts “biology-related fields” inside engineering, which may explain why its shares add up to 105% [11]. | QS Biological Sciences 2026 UK: Oxford (3), Cambridge (5), Imperial (=7) Germany: Heidelberg (28), LMU Munich (=29) USA: Harvard (1), MIT (2), Stanford (4) [24] |
| Medicine | No subject-level count: MEA does not record subjects. Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, reported as mainly medical destinations, together host about 59,500 Indian university students [1] [20]. A foreign MBBS must meet National Medical Commission rules to practise in India. | QS Medicine 2026 UK: Oxford (2), Cambridge (5), UCL (6) Germany: Heidelberg (34) USA: Harvard (1), Stanford (3), Johns Hopkins (4) [24] |
| Mathematics and statistics | Germany: part of the 18% “Mathematics/Natural Sciences” group [11]. USA 2018/19: counted together with computer science and engineering [5]. | QS Mathematics 2026 UK: Oxford (2), Cambridge (3), Imperial (=8) Germany: Bonn (39), TUM (50), TU Berlin (53) USA: MIT (1), Harvard (4), Princeton (5) [24] |
| Economics | Germany: inside the 21% “Social Sciences/Economics/Management” group [11]. No separate Indian figure for the UK or USA. | QS Economics & Econometrics 2026 UK: LSE (6), Oxford (8), Cambridge (10) Germany: LMU Munich (47), Bonn (50), Mannheim (=56) USA: Harvard (1), MIT (2), Stanford (3) [24] |
| Humanities | Germany: part of the 6% “Other (Sports/Arts/German Studies, etc.)” [11]. No Indian-only figure elsewhere. | QS Arts & Humanities 2026 UK: Oxford (1), Cambridge (3), UCL (8) Germany: Humboldt Berlin (=24), FU Berlin (30), LMU Munich (=35) USA: Harvard (2), Stanford (4), Yale (5) [24] |
| Germany: inside the 21% “Social Sciences/Economics/Management” group [11]. | QS Social Sciences & Management 2026 (broad area) UK: Oxford (2), Cambridge (4), LSE (5) Germany: not in the visible top list USA: Harvard (1), Stanford (3) [24] |
We do not publish any “most popular universities for Indian students” list, because no source supports one yet.
What data exists at university and subject level
- UK (HESA): publishes students by university and by country of permanent address, and separately by university and subject. It does not publish the three together, so a ranking such as “universities with the most Indian chemistry students” is not available in open data; it would need a custom HESA data request [8].
- Germany (Destatis, DAAD/DZHW): national counts of foreign students by citizenship [12] and international students by broad subject group [10]. Some universities publish their own tables of students by nationality, e.g. Saarland University [25], but there is no national university × subject × nationality table.
- USA (Open Doors, SEVIS): totals by country of origin and by academic level [2]; fields of study and leading institutions for all international students together, not by nationality [6]. Some universities publish their own international student reports.
- Bengali students: no country counts students by mother tongue, and India's government reports national totals only — a parliamentary question asking for state-wise figures received none [22].
Help us count. If you are a Bengali student abroad, tell us your subject and university (and, if you like, your home district) through the Contribute page. With enough answers, BiswaPath will publish the first map of where Bengali students study, by subject — counts only, never names.
Sources
Each source is marked as the original source or a report of the figure. Where only a report was available, we say so.
- Ministry of External Affairs (India): Data on Indian students abroad, as on 1 January 2025 (Annexure I) — original source
- IIE Open Doors 2025: India fact sheet (academic year 2024/25) — original source
- IIE Open Doors 2025: Bangladesh fact sheet (academic year 2024/25) — original source
- IIE Open Doors 2025 press release (November 2025) — original source
- Open Doors 2018/19 data on Indian students by field, as charted by Datawrapper — report of the figure
- US ICE: 2024 SEVIS by the Numbers (calendar year 2024) — original source
- UK Home Office: Why do people come to the UK? Study (year ending June 2026) — original source
- HESA: Higher Education Student Statistics, UK 2024/25 — where students come from (27 January 2026) — original source
- Wikipedia: International students in the United Kingdom (cites HESA 'Where do HE students come from?') — report of the figure
- DAAD/DZHW: Wissenschaft weltoffen 2026 press release (14 October 2026), as published by bildungsklick — original source
- DAAD India: Indian students in Germany at an all-time high (22 September 2025) — original source
- Destatis via DZHW data portal, Table 2.5.33: foreign students by citizenship, winter semesters to 2023/24 — original source
- Business Standard: 69,816 Indian students in Germany, attributed to DAAD (13 August 2026) — report of the figure
- VDE: role of international students in electrical engineering (2026), citing CHE/HSI-Monitor on Destatis data — report of the figure
- Times Higher Education (31 July 2025): ApplyBoard analysis of UK enrolment data, 2023/24 — report of the figure
- The Daily Star (August 2023): UNESCO data on Bangladeshi students abroad, 2022 — report of the figure
- ICEF Monitor (November 2025): OECD data on Bangladeshi students abroad, 2022 — report of the figure
- TBS News (4 December 2025): UK visa refusals and recruitment pauses for Bangladesh — report of the figure
- Gulf News: Dubai's international students in 2024/25 (KHDA figures) — report of the figure
- Business Today (26 July 2025): MEA data on new departures, 2023 vs 2024 — report of the figure
- The Tribune (10 September 2022): Indian embassy advisory on studying medicine in China — report of the figure
- Lok Sabha Starred Question 84 (29 July 2024): national totals only, no state-wise data — report of the figure
- QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 (official tables) — original source
- XuanXiao: QS 2026 subject positions by country (used to read the QS tables; check against QS) — report of the figure
- Example of a university publishing its own nationality data: Saarland University, winter 2025/26 — original source
Last checked: 19 October 2026