Journal article: Remittances are a challenge for developing countries. Since it impossible to provide exact figures of informal transfers, although they are probably very large, only official money transfers are dealt with here, as one of the components of the balance of payments. Data confirm that migrants working in Gulf countries transfer a larger share of their income that those residing in diversified economies such as that of France. The high ranking of Gulf countries in the list of countries sending remittances prove that migrants play an important part in the redistribution of income generated by oil. A comparison based on a sample of 103 countries over a period of nearly twenty years (1985-2003) shows that those receiving large amount of remittances are more or less the same, which suggests a dependency of these countries on remittances. However the reality is more complex. Comparing remittances to four other macroeconomic indicators (GDP, tourism receipts, direct foreign investment, exports) within each region of the world, reveals large intra-regional differences between countries.