Afghan Americans (Dari: آمریکایی‌های افغان‌تبار Amrikāyi-hāye Afghān tabar, Pashto: د امريکا افغانان Da Amrīka Afghanan) are Americans with ancestry from Afghanistan. They form the largest Afghan community in North America with the second being Afghan Canadians. Afghan Americans may originate from any of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan.

The Afghan community in the United States was minimal until large numbers were admitted as refugees following the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Others have arrived similarly during and after the latest war in Afghanistan. Afghan Americans reside and work all across the United States. The states of California, Virginia and New York historically had the largest number of Afghan Americans. Thousands may also be found in the states of Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Washington, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, North Carolina, Maryland and Illinois.

Afghan Americans have a long history of immigrating to the United States, as they have arrived as early as the 1860s. This was around the time when Afghanistan–United States relations were being established. Wallace Fard Muhammad claimed to have been from Afghanistan. A World War I draft registration card for Wallie Dodd Fard from 1917 indicated he was living in Los Angeles, California, as an unmarried restaurant owner, and reported that he was born in Shinka, Afghanistan in 1893. Between the 1920s and 1940s, hundreds of Afghans immigrated to the United States. Between 1953 and early 1970, at least 230 lawfully entered the United States. Some of them were students who had been granted scholarships to study in American universities.

After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, around five million Afghan citizens were displaced. They were compelled to secretly migrate to (or seek refuge in) other countries. These Afghan refugees or asylum seekers found temporary shelter in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, and from there thousands made it to Europe, North America, Oceania, and elsewhere in the world. Under the law, the ones born in Pakistan, Iran or India are not in any way Pakistanis, Iranians or Indians. Their birth certificates and other legal documents confirm that they are citizens of Afghanistan.

Beginning in 1980, Afghan Americans arrived into the United States as families. They were admitted as refugees or asylum seekers. In some cases a family was represented by only one parent due to the death of the other parent. They began settling in the New York metropolitan area, California (mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles-Orange County area) and in other parts of the United States, where large Muslim community centers keep them bonded. Fremont, California, is home to the largest population of Afghan Americans followed by Northern Virginia and then Queens in New York City. Smaller Afghan American communities also exist in the states of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Washington, Georgia, Michigan, Idaho, Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Colorado, Ohio, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee and so on. In the city of Chicago, the 2000 census counted 556 Afghan Americans, approximately half of them within the city.

The first arrivals of Afghan families in the early 1980s were mainly the wealthy and from the urban and educated elite. They had rightfully applied for refugee status while temporarily residing in Pakistan and India, and a large number had similarly resided in Germany before their firm resettlement in the United States. The family reunification program brought in less affluent communities from rural Afghanistan, many of which were illiterate and maintained a more traditional village lifestyle.

Those admitted under 8 U.S.C. § 1157 and becoming green card recipients under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a) are statutorily protected against inadmissibility, even if they are not in possession of their green cards, Afghan passports, Afghan identity cards, or any other legal document. In addition to that privilege or benefit, whenever one parent becomes naturalized all of his or her children statutorily become entitled to naturalization through such American parent. This conferral of American nationality statutorily extends to all of his or her children that are born outside of the United States. All such nationality claims are statutorily reviewable under the federal judiciary of the United States.

Post September 11, 2001, the Afghan American community faced discriminations. President Bush's plan to legalize works to help the economy came to a halt after the terror attack in 2001. It interrupted talk of legalizing immigrants thus leading to few admitted immigrants from 2001 to 2005. 406,080 immigrant visas were issued in 2001. 395,005 were issued in 2005 according to the Department of Homeland Security.