There are currently 10 million to 100 million digital nomads in the world in 2025. This is based on the below assumptions (last updated: 2025-01-29)

It's hard to estimate how many digital nomads exist, but let's try with some live data from this site (this paragraph is live updated based on Nomads.com data). To do this we have to make some assumptions though, so take this with a grain of salt.

In the last year, Nomads.com got 5,187,396 visits. About 20% of those visits are unique users, or 1,037,479 users. Not everyone who visits is already a nomad, probably most are wanna be nomads: but let's assume 25% are nomads or 259,370 people. If we assume Nomads.com captures 10% of the entire demographic of digital nomads in a year (it's uncommon for companies to capture double digit amounts of a market), that'd mean there's 2,593,698 digital nomads.

Nomads.com mostly has an English-speaking Western audience though, which is only 20% of the world. Then again, most of the world is probably not in a position to go work remotely and travel (yet) due to differences in income. If we assume 40% of the world is though (or double the English speaking population), that means we can count 5,187,396 digital nomads.

That's only self-described digital nomads though. If we make the definition broader to people who work remotely at least part of the year in a country different than their home country the number might double to 10,374,792 or triple to 15,562,188 digital nomads in the entire world.

There's actual research that has surveyed this too. MBO Partners concluded "4.8 million independent workers currently describe themselves as digital nomads [in the United States]". The U.S. has a population of ~330 million people. That means 1.5% self-describes as a digital nomad. If we use that percentage for the entire world, we get ~100 million digital nomads. But most of the world isn't as developed as the U.S. Even if we only add Europe: 741 million people * 1.5% = ~10 million digital nomads. Adding back U.S. to that gets us to close to ~15 million digital nomads. MBO's research is within the range of 10 million - 100 million above.

Let's try one more calculation: business travelers. The Business Travel Association reports that in the U.S. alone there are 405 million business trips taken per year with the average traveler taking 12-14 trips. That means there's about 30 million business travelers in the U.S. It is stated in Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report that 43% of U.S. employees work remotely at least some of the time. If we take 30 million business travelers * 43% working remotely at least some of the time = 12.9 million remote working business travelers. If we add the same % to Europe, that's ~42 million people traveling while working remotely in the U.S. and EU. The estimate based on business traveler and remote work statistics is again within the range of 10 million - 100 million above.

If we check Facebook and search for "digital nomads", the biggest group is Digital Nomads Around the World which has ~200,000 members at time of writing. Let's say that group captures 10% of digital nomads and there's 2,000,000 nomads there. We then only have the predominantly English-speaking Western audience though, which again is only 20% of the world. If we add the rest of the world, that'd be a multiple of this, e.g. 10 million digital nomads. Which is on the lower end 10 million to 100 million but still in the millions.

If we do the same for Reddit, the main subreddit for digital nomads is /r/digitalnomad with over 2,000,000 subscribers. Probably most are wanna be nomads: but let's assume 25% are nomads, that's 500,000 people. If that group captures 10% of digital nomads (not everybody uses Reddit, nor does everybody who is a nomad subscribes to this subreddit), then there's 5 million nomads out there. Since Reddit too is mostly an English-speaking Western audience (e.g. 20% of the world) the real number is a multiple of 5 million. That's on the lower end of the 10 million to 100 million nomads range.

The 10 million to 100 million range with current growth is about in line with the prediction that there will be one billion digital nomads by 2035: