“Immigrate” means to move into a new country to live there, while “migrate” is general movement from one place to another.
Immigrate
To move into a new country to live permanently. Example: “My grandparents immigrated to the United States.”
Emigrate
To leave your country to live elsewhere. “They emigrated from Italy.”
Migrate
To move from one place to another, often seasonally or for work, and not necessarily across borders. Birds migrate, and people migrate within a country.
Memory trick
Immigrate = in (into). Emigrate = exit.
Related
Immigrant (entering) and emigrant (leaving) describe the same person from different views.
Numbers
About 47 million immigrants live in the US (2023), around 14 percent of the population.
Usage
“Migrant” is a broader term.
Direction of movement
- Immigrate: move into a new country to live there. Example: She immigrated to Canada in 2015.
- Emigrate: leave your country to live elsewhere. Example: He emigrated from Poland.
- Migrate: move from one region to another, often seasonally or in groups.
Same person, two views
The same person is an immigrant to the new country and an emigrant from the old one.
Prepositions
We immigrate “to” a country and emigrate “from” a country.
Migrate in nature
Birds, whales, butterflies and wildebeest migrate. The Arctic tern travels about 44,000 miles in a round trip, among the longest migrations of any animal.
Migration in data
Software and data can be migrated to a new system. “Migration” also refers to moving between cities within a country, called internal migration.
Numbers
The United Nations estimates about 281 million international migrants lived in the world in 2020, equal to about 3.6% of the global population. The United States has the largest immigrant population, about 50 million people.
Related terms
- Refugee: a person forced to flee due to persecution, war or violence.
- Asylum seeker: someone who applies for protection.
- Expatriate: someone living abroad, often temporarily.
Memory trick
“Im” means into and “em” means exit. Immigrate: in. Emigrate: exit.
Direction words and everyday use
To immigrate means to move into a country to live there, so the focus is the destination: “My grandparents immigrated to the United States in 1952.” To emigrate means to move out of one’s home country, and the focus is the origin: “They emigrated from Poland.” To migrate means to move from one place to another, often seasonally or in large groups, and it is used for people, birds, animals and even data. “Immigrate” usually takes “to” and “emigrate” takes “from.” A person who arrives is an immigrant, and the same person is an emigrant from the viewpoint of the country left. A useful memory trick is that “im” suggests “in” and “e” suggests “exit.”
Numbers on migration
The United Nations estimated about 281 million international migrants worldwide in 2020, around 3.6 percent of the world’s population. In the United States, the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey counted about 47.8 million foreign born residents in 2023, roughly 14 percent of the population. Animal migration is a different use of the word: Arctic terns fly between the Arctic and Antarctic each year, covering tens of thousands of miles, which is the longest known animal migration. Migrate is also used in computing to mean moving data or software from one system to another.
Based on data from the United Nations and the US Census Bureau
