Ukraine held an estimated 3,712,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 4,405,000 returnees as of December 2025, according to the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) General Population Survey Round 22, published in January 2026 after fieldwork running from 15 October to 22 December 2025.

The quarterly survey, based on 40,001 randomly selected phone interviews plus follow-ups with 1,388 IDPs, 1,135 returnees and 1,636 non-displaced respondents, shows winter sharply worsening access to basic goods and services. The share of IDPs reporting at least one access gap rose to 89 per cent in December 2025, a five-point increase since October.

Where are the displaced living?

Dnipropetrovska Oblast hosts the largest IDP population (560,000, or 15 per cent of the total), followed by Kharkivska (463,000, 12 per cent), Kyiv City (341,000, 9 per cent) and Kyivska Oblast (311,000, 8 per cent). One-third of all IDPs — 1,279,000 people — live in frontline raions.

Donetska Oblast is the top place of origin, accounting for 29 per cent of all IDPs. The largest displacement flows run from Donetska to Dnipropetrovska Oblast (286,000 IDPs), to Kyiv City (103,000) and to Poltavska Oblast (94,000). More than half of all IDPs (57 per cent, or 2,113,000 people) come from fully or partially occupied raions.

Displacement has become protracted. The median duration stands at 1,135 days; 71 per cent of IDPs have been displaced for more than two years and 82 per cent for over a year.

What does winter change?

Shortages of portable power banks and generators showed the sharpest deterioration. Between October and December 2025, the share of IDPs reporting insufficient access to these items jumped from 34 per cent to 58 per cent — a trend IOM links to intensified attacks on energy infrastructure and higher winter energy needs. Medicine access gaps widened from 38 per cent to 47 per cent, accommodation from 29 per cent to 36 per cent, clothing and non-food items from 29 per cent to 35 per cent, and food from 32 per cent to 36 per cent.

Gaps are worst among the recently displaced: 30 per cent of those displaced for under three months named power and lighting items their most pressing need, against 18–21 per cent among longer-term IDPs. Housing pressures move the other way — accommodation was cited as the most pressing need by 7 per cent of recent IDPs but 14–16 per cent of those displaced for a year or more.

How are households coping?

Some 86 per cent of IDPs reported their households had adopted or exhausted at least one livelihoods-based coping strategy, compared with 78 per cent of returnees and 77 per cent of the non-displaced. In the 30 days before interviews:

• 71 per cent spent savings;
• 58 per cent reduced utility usage (up from 54 per cent in October);
• 56 per cent cut essential health expenditures;
• 52 per cent relied on humanitarian assistance;
• 30 per cent accepted lower-paid work;
• 19 per cent moved to poorer-quality housing;
• 18 per cent skipped rent payments (up from 11 per cent in Round 21).

Buffers are shrinking. One in five households reported fully depleted savings, and 12 per cent said humanitarian assistance was no longer available to them as a coping option.

Vulnerability is concentrated in specific groups. Among IDP-only households, 37 per cent include a member with a disability, 56 per cent a member with a chronic illness and 42 per cent at least one child. Single-parent households are twice as common among IDPs (8 per cent) as among the non-displaced (4 per cent). Households with a PHQ-2 score of 3 or above — an indicator of elevated depressive risk — relied more heavily on crisis-level (44 per cent) and emergency-level (37 per cent) coping.

Who is coming back — and moving on?

An estimated 372,000 IDPs, 10 per cent of the total, returned to Ukraine from abroad but remain internally displaced. This group is less settled: only 82 per cent planned to stay in their current locations over the next three months, versus 90 per cent among those who had not been abroad, and 18 per cent were considering leaving again.

Overall movement intentions are largely stable. 89 per cent of IDPs planned to remain in place over the following three months. Longer term, 44 per cent intend or hope to return to their places of origin — 75 per cent of them only once hostilities end — while 39 per cent plan to stay and integrate locally.

All figures come from IOM's Ukraine Internal Displacement Report, Round 22 (January 2026), which anchors the official record of the change and full methodological notes; the survey excluded Crimea and occupied areas of Donetska, Luhanska, Khersonska and Zaporizka Oblasts.