Purpose – This study aimsto advance the understanding of immigrant entrepreneurial trajectories by examining how rural–urban spatial contexts interact with necessity–opportunity motivations to shape opportunities, resource access, and integration processes. Design/methodology/approach – We adopt a mixed methods design that integrates a systematic literature review with a qualitative study. In the first study, we conduct a literature review on immigrant entrepreneurship to identify key themes, methodological patterns, and empirical gaps. In the second study, we complement this with in-depth interviews with 20 immigrant entrepreneurs in both rural and urban spatial contexts, supported by two focus groups and secondary data. This sequential, theory-building design allows the literature review to inform the qualitative inquiry and the empirical findings to refine and extend the conceptual framework. Findings – The literature review reveals the main thematic groups in immigrant entrepreneurship, while the qualitative study highlights how motivations, challenges, and adaptive strategies vary across rural and urban contexts. Together, the findings show that geographic context is associated with distinct opportunity structures, resource constraints, and integration pathways. The study proposes a framework for investigating immigrant entrepreneurs’ trajectories across rural–urban settings and along the necessity–opportunity spectrum, clarifying how these dimensions interact in shaping entrepreneurial behaviour. Practical implications – The empirical findings offer fundamental practical contributions for organisations that support immigrant entrepreneurship, demanding stratified and context-sensitive interventions. Originality/value – Immigrant entrepreneurship is a growing field of research; however, there remains a limited integrated understanding of how rural and urban spatial contexts intersect with necessity–opportunity motivations to shape immigrant trajectories. This study contributes to the literature by developing a contextualised framework that bridges spatial embeddedness and motivational theories, offering a typology and propositions to help scholars further theorise immigrant entrepreneurial pathways and to provide more targeted policy support for immigrant entrepreneurs across diverse territorial and motivational settings.

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Necessity–opportunity entrepreneurship,Rural–urban,Mixed-methods approach,Immigrant entrepreneurship