Immigrant entrepreneurship

Template:User sandbox Immigrant entrepreneurship refers to the founding or ownership of businesses by individuals who have immigrated to a country other than their country of birth. Notable examples include Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elon Musk in the United States; Paul Julius Reuter, who built his news agency in Britain; and James de Rothschild, the Frankfurt-born banker who founded the French branch of the Rothschild dynasty; Lakshmi Mittal, who emigrated from India to build ArcelorMittal into one of the world's largest steel companies; and Liem Sioe Liong, who emigrated from China to Indonesia in 1936 and founded the Salim Group, which became the largest business conglomerate in Southeast Asia, and Helena Rubinstein, the Polish-born founder of a global cosmetics empire built across Australia, Europe, and the United States.

Patterns and prevalence

Research indicates that immigrants found businesses at higher rates than native-born populations in many developed countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. In broader terms the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s International Migration Outlook 2024, found that in 2022 that migrant entrepreneurs across OECD countries represented 17% of the self-employed, which had increased from 11% in 2006, with migrant self-employment accounting for approximately 15% of the total employment growth between 2011 and 2021. This indicates that of all the new jobs created across OECD economies in this period, roughly one in seven came from migrant entrepreneurs starting or expanding their own businesses and that the rate of immigrant entrepreneurship has been increasing. The pattern is not uniform, however, with significant variation across countries and regions.

Additional figures indicate both the substantial portion of entrepreneurship created from the immigrant population as well as the consistent increases over various periods. According to the American Immigration Council, in 2024 approximately 46% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, with those companies generating $8.6 trillion in revenue and employing over 15.5 million people worldwide.In the United States specifically, a 2019 review published in IZA World of Labor, economist Magnus Lofstrom documents the foreign-born share of business owners more than doubled between 1980 and 2010. A study using United States Census Bureau data found that immigrant entrepreneurs accounted for approximately 24% of new business founders between 1995 and 2008, with that share rising from 17% in 1995 to 27% in 2008. A separate analysis based on the American Community Survey found that by around 2010, immigrants represented approximately 18.2% of all United States business owners despite comprising 16.3% of the workforce, and started businesses at roughly double the rate of the native-born population.

Entrepreneurship by sector

Immigrant entrepreneurship spans a wide range of industries, with particularly notable contributions in certain sectors. The following sections highlight selected areas where this impact has been especially significant.

Technology

Immigrant founders have played a prominent role in the technology industry. A 2019 study by Brown, Earle, Kim and Lee, using United States Census Bureau data, found higher rates of innovation in immigrant-owned high-tech firms across 15 of 16 different innovation measures, with the advantage holding for both recent start-ups and older firms, and at every level of the entrepreneur's education. Among venture capital-backed firms in the United States specifically, immigrants constituted approximately 30% of founders in 2005, modestly exceeding their overall share of entrepreneurial activity. Notable examples include Sergey Brin, who emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States as a child and co-founded Google in 1998; and Jensen Huang, who emigrated from Taiwan to the United States at the age of nine and co-founded NVIDIA in 1993, which became one of the world's most valuable technology companies.

Finance and banking

Immigrant entrepreneurs played a formative role in shaping the modern banking and financial services industry in the United States, introducing practices and institutions that became central to the country's economic architecture. Research has documented significant immigrant business ownership in financial services, with immigrants representing a substantial share of business owners in this sector. German-Jewish immigrants in particular were instrumental in developing the commercial paper market, investment banking, and the infrastructure of Wall Street during the 19th and early 20th centuries, often serving communities and markets that established institutions had ignored or lacked the networks to reach.

Marcus Goldman, a Bavarian-born Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1848, founded what would become Goldman Sachs in 1869 as a one-room commercial paper brokerage in Lower Manhattan, building it into one of Wall Street's premier firms by the turn of the century. Beyond individual firm-building, immigrant financiers also shaped the broader regulatory and institutional framework of American finance. Paul Warburg, a Hamburg-born banker who emigrated to the United States in 1902 and became a naturalized citizen in 1911, is widely credited as the primary intellectual architect of the Federal Reserve System, drawing on his knowledge of European central banking to design the institutional framework that Congress enacted in 1913, and serving on its inaugural board from 1914.

Media and entertainment

Film and television

Immigrant entrepreneurs played a formative role in the establishment of the American film industry. Harry Warner and his brothers, born in Poland and raised in the United States, founded Warner Bros. in 1923, one of the major Hollywood studios whose output shaped American cinema throughout the 20th century. In the modern era, Australian-born Rupert Murdoch became a naturalized United States citizen in 1985 and built News Corp and Fox Corporation into one of the most influential media conglomerates in the world.

Journalism

Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer immigrated to the United States in 1864, became a naturalized citizen in 1867, and went on to found the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and acquire the New York World, transforming both into major instruments of popular journalism. He endowed the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and established the Pulitzer Prize, awarded annually since 1917.

Digital media

Steve Chen, who immigrated from Taiwan to the United States as a child, co-founded YouTube in 2005, which was acquired by Google the following year for $1.65 billion.

Music

Cuban-born Emilio Estefan immigrated to Miami following the Cuban Revolution and co-founded the Miami Sound Machine, producing and developing artists including Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Shakira, and Jennifer Lopez, and is widely credited with catalysing the crossover explosion of Latin music in the United States during the late 1990s. His wife Gloria Estefan, also Cuban-born, became one of the best-selling recording artists in history and received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 1993, awarded to exceptional naturalized United States citizens.

Retail and food

Immigrant entrepreneurs are well represented in retail, food service, and agriculture across many regions of the world. Research from Ireland, Sweden, and Southeast Asia illustrates the breadth of this presence: studies have documented immigrant food entrepreneurs operating across these regions, often filling niche markets with ethnic food products unavailable to local consumers, and using food entrepreneurship as a pathway to economic integration when formal employment is less accessible.

Immigrant entrepreneurs have also demonstrated a capacity to create entirely new markets rather than simply serving existing ones. Research on the United States labour market documents how Vietnamese immigrants transformed the nail care industry by establishing walk-in salons offering manicures and pedicures at a fraction of the price of traditional beauty salons, expanding access to a service previously available only to affluent consumers and generating sustained demand for their labour. Similar dynamics have been observed in the restaurant sector, where the presence of immigrant entrepreneurs has been shown to increase the variety of dining options available to consumers in cities across the United States. Research on immigrant-owned businesses in a Chicago retail district found that retail and personal services were among the most common sectors of entry, with many businesses beginning informally before transitioning to established enterprises as owners accumulated capital, experience, and market knowledge. In the United States specifically, immigrants make up approximately one third of entrepreneurs in the food service and accommodation sector.

Entrepreneurship by diaspora

Several diaspora communities have demonstrated sustained rates of business creation across their host countries. This pattern is frequently attributed to co-ethnic networks, pooled capital, and trust-based commercial relationships that lower barriers to market entry.

Chinese diaspora

The Chinese diaspora has established significant entrepreneurial presences across Southeast Asia, North America, and Australasia. In Southeast Asia, ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs built some of the largest business conglomerates of the 20th century, of which Liem Sioe Liong is among the most documented examples: emigrating from Fujian province to Indonesia in 1936, he founded the Salim Group, which became the largest business conglomerate in Southeast Asia. In the United States, Chinese immigrants have established substantial commercial presences in the restaurant sector, with research documenting how Chinese employment agencies channel workers into restaurant jobs across the country, and how Chinese entrepreneurs have extended this niche vertically by owning the bus companies that transport these workers between cities. Chinese immigrant business owners represented approximately 3.1% of all immigrant business owners in the United States in the late 2000s, with a business ownership rate of 10%.

Indian diaspora

Activity is concentrated in technology, retail, and financial services, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.

Lebanese diaspora

Established entrepreneurial networks are present across West Africa and Latin America.

Jewish diaspora

Historically significant involvement in finance, media, and retail has been documented across Europe and North America.

Hispanic diaspora

Considerable entrepreneurial presence exists in the United States, though outcomes vary significantly by national origin. Mexican immigrants represent the largest single source country group among United States immigrant business owners, accounting for approximately 23.4% of the total, though their business ownership rate falls below the national average, a pattern attributed largely to lower average levels of education and wealth and, for undocumented individuals, barriers related to legal status. Cuban immigrants, by contrast, show a substantially higher business ownership rate of 14.8%, with self-employment rates found to increase in areas of high Hispanic residential concentration.

Women immigrant entrepreneurs

Women have featured prominently among immigrant entrepreneurs across multiple sectors and host countries, though they remain underrepresented in the broader literature. Joyce Chen, who emigrated from China to the United States in 1949, founded restaurants, a cookware company, and a television programme credited with introducing Mandarin cuisine to American audiences. Amina Moghe Hersi, a Somali-Kenyan entrepreneur who emigrated to Uganda in 1998, built a multimillion-dollar business empire spanning real estate, hardware distribution, and manufacturing, and was named African Businesswoman of the Year by The New Economy in 2014.

Host country policies

Many developed countries have introduced special visa programs to attract immigrant entrepreneurs, though the effectiveness of such programs remains an active area of research.

Academic perspectives

Self-employment has been identified in the academic literature as a significant pathway for labour market integration among immigrant populations. Research indicates, however, that entrepreneurship yields stronger economic outcomes for high-skilled immigrants than for those with lower levels of formal qualification. Studies based on United States data suggest that immigrant-founded businesses tend to show greater employment growth over the medium term compared to native-founded businesses, though without a corresponding advantage in payroll growth, and with higher rates of both failure and expansion relative to native-founded firms. Immigrant-owned businesses have also been found to export at higher rates than native-owned businesses, a pattern attributed to commercial networks, shared language, and cultural ties with countries of origin.

Research on immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States high-tech sector has found that immigrant-owned firms demonstrate higher rates of innovation across a broad range of measures, including product innovation, process innovation, research and development, and patenting. A 2019 study found this advantage persists after controlling for demographic characteristics, start-up financing, motivations, and industry, suggesting it reflects a genuine difference in entrepreneurial behaviour rather than compositional factors. A 2025 study of nearly 91,000 United States start-ups by researchers at UC Berkeley and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business found that ventures with mixed immigrant and native-born founding teams outperformed those founded by either group alone, employing 20% more people after three years, raising larger funding rounds, and filing significantly more patents. The researchers attributed the advantage to expanded access to international talent, capital, and markets.

See also

• Minority business enterprise