Purpose - Psychotherapy with refugees in the western world is quite often complicated because many refugees live without a secure residency status. It is difficult to have a structured therapeutic perspective when doing psychotherapy with these patients because of their fears and daily problems. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate psychotherapy results for 190 traumatized refugees (40 per cent without a secure residency). Design/methodology/approach - To measure the outcome of the psychotherapies the paper used HAM-D and CGI at baseline and at the end of the therapeutic process. Findings - The study shows that, although refugees without a legal status had more depressive symptoms and lived with much higher psychosocial stress, psychotherapy was as effective as for traumatized refugees with a legal status. Research limitations/implications - Heterogeneity, convenience sampling and retrospective completion of some of the baseline assessments. Practical implications - Psychotherapeutic treatment of refugees has a clear positive effect on them and should be applied even in those without legal residence status in the host country. Originality/value - This is the first study assessing the effectiveness of daily practice psychotherapy for refugees with and without a legal status in a comparative fashion.