Advocacy

How governments can support businesses powered by entrepreneurs with refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds

Refugee-run businesses don’t just change the lives of those who run them, they grow economies. Refugees in Australia are nearly twice as likely to be entrepreneurs as the average taxpayer, and their businesses earn a higher median income ($15,716) than Australians overall ($10,960). In 2013–14 alone, humanitarian migrants generated $346 million from their own enterprises.

With the right support, the potential for Australia’s stagnating economy is enormous. Launching just 1,000 new refugee businesses a year could add $98 million annually to the economy, and within a decade that boost could top $1 billion every year.

Behind every refugee-run business is a story of resilience, creativity, and community. When we invest in their success, we’re not just growing GDP—we’re strengthening the social fabric of Australia.

Governments can realise this value by:

Overcoming refugee business barriers to finance
Grant work rights on all bridging visas so people seeking asylum can support themselves and reduce risk of destitution or exploitation
Backing incubators and accelerators to give entrepreneurs tools to scale
Teaching funding confidence so founders know how to ask and secure capital
Funding Welcome Merchant’s national refugee business directory to connect customers, partners and talent
Offering flexible finance
Improving the skills recognition system
Reverse cuts to refugee and asylum seeker support programs, restoring federal funding to Non-government Organisations (NGOs) and Status Resolution Support Services (SRSS)

These facts help explain the broader context for refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia:

It is legal to seek asylum
Australia signed up to the UN Refugee Convention, which guarantees people the right to seek asylum regardless of how they get to Australia. Because of this, it is legal to enter Australia by boat or plane if a person is fleeing persecution.

Australia’s strenuous asylum process prevents scam applications
The vast majority of people who seek asylum in Australia are found to be genuine refugees, according to Home Affairs data. Australia’s asylum process includes legal scrutiny, interviews, and appeals.

Public support for refugees and people seeking asylum is high
Polls show that more than three in four Australians (77%) support the right to seek refuge, with support for refugees in Australia being among the strongest globally. A majority support giving people seeking asylum work and study rights while their protection claims are assessed, and voters do not want to send people seeking asylum back to dangerous situations, or to pay other countries to take people seeking asylum currently in Australia.

It is affordable to support refugees and people seeking asylum
Supporting people seeking asylum and refugees isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s an economic opportunity. Deloitte estimates that increasing Australia’s humanitarian intake to 44,000 per year could add $37.7 billion to the economy over 50 years and sustain around 35,000 full-time jobs annually. Research from Settlement Services International shows that enabling refugee entrepreneurship could generate $1 billion a year within a decade.