Chapter 3: Profiles of stateless people in Australia “All my life I have belonged nowhere. I am getting old and yet I still have no country. One day I hope I may be considered Australian – to be given a chance here.” — Kareem* 3.1 Introduction One of the key aims of this study was to understand the profile of stateless people in Australia. With no coordinated approach to collecting information about stateless people however, difficulties exist in accurately and comprehensively identifying and researching the population of stateless people in Australia.47 This is especially the case given that Australia lacks a formal statelessness determination procedure; even where stateless people appear as a category within government data, the basis upon which somebody has been identified (or whether they have self-identified) is unclear. Indeed, unreliable and unverified data collected by government bodies regarding stateless people is a common issue facing attempts to ‘quantify’ statelessness in other countries where statelessness mapping has also been conducted.48 Key findings indicate that: 1.1 There is a discrepancy between annual data concerning the number of stateless people in Australia reported by UNHCR and publicly available government statistics (3.2.1); 1.6 Children account for a significant proportion of stateless people on visas in Australia (29% as at 30 September 2025) (3.2.4); 1.2 Given that Australia lacks a formal process for identifying stateless people (i.e. an SDP) figures published concerning the number of stateless people in Australia cannot be considered a true or reliable estimate (3.2.1 and 3.2.2); 1.7 Stateless people spend on average 287.2 days longer in immigration detention than non-stateless people in Australia (3.2.5); 1.3 Based on the most recent publicly available UNHCR data, there were 7,503 stateless people in Australia as at 30 June 2025,49 however this number cannot be considered as comprehensive or reliable (3.2.1 and 3.2.2); 1.8 The rate of grants of Australian citizenship to stateless people has steadily increased over the past decade, however many stateless people continue to have their application for citizenship refused (3.2.6); 1.4 There is a paucity of data about the different population groups of stateless people in Australia (3.2.3); 1.9 Stateless people usually require legal assistance to navigate the citizenship application process (3.2.6); and 1.5 There is a significant gap in data collection regarding the ethnicity of stateless people in Australia (3.2.3); 1.10 Stateless people face longer wait times for Australian citizenship depending on their mode of arrival in Australia; on average, stateless people who arrive by boat face longer processing times (3.2.6). Understanding Statelessness in Australia | Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness 21