On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel attacked Iran and killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as U.S. President Donald Trump called on Iranians to take over the government.
Iran has been led by conservative Shiite clerics since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In the decades since, several million Iranians have fled and sought refuge in the U.S. and other countries. As of 2024, there were 750,000 Iranian Americans in the U.S., making up 0.2% of the population.
Here are seven facts about Iranians living in the U.S. Most of the data comes from a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey.
In this analysis, Iranian Americans are people born in Iran, people who said their ancestry or race is Iranian, and people with at least one parent who falls into one of these categories.
The Iranian population in the U.S. grew more than fourfold from 1980 to 2024. Growth was especially rapid in the 1980s and ’90s, when many Iranian immigrants arrived in the wake of the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war.
| Year | All U.S. Iranians | U.S. born | Immigrant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 165000 | 35000 | 130000 |
| 1990 | 305000 | 80000 | 220000 |
| 2000 | 455000 | 150000 | 305000 |
| 2006 | 555000 | 200000 | 355000 |
| 2010 | 595000 | 210000 | 385000 |
| 2015 | 635000 | 220000 | 415000 |
| 2019 | 650000 | 240000 | 410000 |
| 2024 | 750000 | 310000 | 445000 |
In recent years, growth has largely been fueled by U.S.-born Iranians.
During the 1980s, almost two-thirds of Iranian immigrants to the U.S. came as refugees or were granted asylum. Since then, about one-third have come as refugees or asylees.
Nearly half of Iranian Americans (375,000) live in California. Texas (55,000), New York (40,000) and Virginia (30,000) are home to the next-highest numbers of Iranians. Together, these four states account for two-thirds of U.S. Iranians.
Other states with sizable Iranian populations include Florida, Washington, Arizona and Maryland.
Nearly all Iranian Americans live in metro areas – 97%, compared with 79% of Americans from other backgrounds.
Three-in-ten Iranian Americans, or 230,000, live in and around Los Angeles. They make up 1.8% of that metro area’s population.
Other metro areas with large numbers of Iranian Americans are New York (45,000), San Francisco (40,000), Washington (40,000), San Jose (30,000) and San Diego (25,000).
About six-in-ten Iranians in the U.S. (59%) are immigrants – meaning they were born outside the U.S. – making up 0.9% of all U.S. immigrants. More Iranians (445,000) have come to the U.S. than to any other country. They make up about a quarter of the 1.7 million Iranian immigrants worldwide. Other common destinations for Iranian immigrants are Germany, Canada and Turkey.
Almost all Iranian immigrants are in the U.S. legally. Only about 6% were unauthorized in 2023, according to the most recent Pew Research Center estimates.
The U.S. citizenship rate for Iranian immigrants has risen sharply over the past several decades. In 1980, just 15% of foreign-born Iranians were naturalized U.S. citizens, but in 2024, some 79% were. That’s a much higher share than for non-Iranian immigrants (51%).
Iranians in the U.S. are highly educated compared with the overall population. In 2024, about 79% of Iranians ages 25 and older had at least some college education, compared with about 58% of other U.S. adults. Nearly two‑thirds of Iranians (65%) held a bachelor’s degree or higher, and about 35% had an advanced degree.
Educational attainment is high for both immigrant and U.S.-born Iranians. About 76% of Iranian immigrants and 86% of U.S.-born Iranians had at least some college education in 2024.
On average, Iranian Americans are about the same age as other Americans, but that obscures some differences by place of birth. Overall, the median age of U.S. Iranians is 41.2 years, compared with 39.2 for other Americans.
However, Iranian immigrants tend to be much older than non-Iranian immigrants (54.3 vs. 46.6). In contrast, U.S.-born Iranians are much younger than other U.S. natives (18.7 vs. 37.2).
These differences largely stem from when Iranians arrived in the U.S. Since Iranian immigrants have been in the country longer than other immigrants, they tend to be slightly older. And U.S.-born Iranians are almost all children of Iranian immigrants who arrived after 1980.
