The return journey home: Lithuania and Bulgaria reverse the direction of migration

After more than two decades in which millions of Eastern Europeans sought a better life in the West, more and more countries are now investing public funds to reverse the direction of migration.

But these policies do not arise in a vacuum.

Even before states began investing in return programmes, the data already showed that migration flows were beginning to change. In 2024, Bulgaria and Lithuania were the only European countries where more local citizens returned than left.

🤯🇪🇺Europe is experiencing significant #BrainDrain in 2024: most countries are losing more native-born citizens than they are gaining back. Lithuania (+2.87) and Bulgaria (+0.86) are the only two nations with positive net migration of their own people. At the other end,… pic.twitter.com/yKPEzmF9yK
— Kyrylo Shevchenko (@KShevchenkoReal) June 30, 2026

For the Baltic republic the figure is +2.67 per thousand, and for the Balkan country +0.88, according to Data Pulse Research, which used Eurostat statistics.

Brexit and COVID-19 pulled the trigger

In Bulgaria the turnaround began to take shape after Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 national census found that the largest number of citizens returned to their homeland in 2020 – nearly 50,000. On the basis of the collected data, national statistics established that more than 314,000 Bulgarians who had lived abroad between 1980 and 2021 have returned home.

The pandemic also changed the very logic of migration. For tens of thousands of Europeans, the place of work no longer necessarily coincides with the place of residence. The spread of remote and hybrid work allowed some highly qualified specialists to return to their homeland without abandoning an international career.

In 2024, 18,214 Bulgarian citizens returned to Bulgaria – almost 35% of all arrivals in the country – while 13,002 emigrated, meaning returnees outnumbered those who left. In 2025 there is again a positive balance for Bulgarian citizens: 17,369 returned against 4,532 who emigrated. Those who prefer to return are in the active age groups 25-44 and 45-64.

Reverse migration is not limited to the return of Bulgarians; foreign citizens are also settling.

“These are mainly people coming from Turkey, Ukraine and Bulgarians returning from Germany. This helps the population not to decrease as rapidly as in the last 20 years,” said recently the chairman of the National Statistical Institute, Assoc. Prof. Atanas Atanasov.

Germany hosts the largest Bulgarian diaspora in the EU – over 371,000 as of 1 January 2024.

According to data from the UK Office for National Statistics, 11,000 Bulgarians returned in 2025 alone, while fewer than 4,000 arrived on the island. Bulgarians are the third-largest group of citizens from European countries leaving the United Kingdom – after Romanians and Poles.

Eastern Europe catches up with the West

The first reason for return is the economic convergence between Eastern and Western Europe. Twenty years after the big EU enlargement, the countries that joined after 2004 are already catching up with the European average. According to the European Commission’s Ninth Cohesion Report, average per capita income in these countries has risen from 52% of the EU average in 2004 to nearly 80% in 2023, while average unemployment has fallen from 13% to 4%.In 2004, when Bulgaria and Lithuania were among the poorest countries in Europe, GDP per capita (in purchasing power parity – PPS) stood at 35% and 50% of the EU average respectively. Twenty years later, Bulgaria has reached 66% and Lithuania 87%.Differences with Western Europe remain significant, but the economic incentive for emigration is no longer as strong. This is also helped by the rapid rise in the cost of living in several Western European countries – housing, rents, childcare, as well as tighter access to social benefits.

Economic catch-up, however, explains only part of the process. The OECD’s Return, Reintegration and Re-migration study (2024) shows that return decisions are most often influenced by a combination of family, professional and life factors. Family occupies a central place among them.

Those returning are usually better educated and more successfully integrated into the labour market than the population average. This shatters the cliché that it is the unsuccessful who return. The World Bank notes that these people bring back not only savings, but also professional experience, entrepreneurial skills, new technologies and social capital. How successfully the state will retain them, however, depends less on one-off financial incentives and more on the quality of institutions, the labour market and opportunities for professional realisation.

Pressure from new migrants

Added to economic convergence is another change: Western Europe is no longer the same magnet for migration that it was after EU enlargement. Since 2015, and especially after the war in Ukraine, European labour markets have increasingly relied on workers and refugees from third countries – from Ukraine, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

In 2024, 4.2 million immigrants from outside the Union arrived in the EU, while internal migration between member states was 1.5 million people, according to Eurostat data. This also changes the position of Eastern European emigrants: they are no longer the primary labour reserve for the West.

In 2024, over three-quarters of small and medium-sized enterprises in the EU reported a shortage of qualified staff, particularly acute in construction, transport, IT and engineering professions. In healthcare the pressure is especially strong – the EU faces a deficit of nearly 1.2 million doctors, nurses and midwives by 2030.

The shortage is already being felt in Bulgaria too. For example, 14 doctors from India, Sudan, Somalia, Turkey and Iraq work in the hospital in Pernik. In other medical facilities, specialists from Ukraine are also starting work.

Alongside attracting workers from third countries, Eastern European states are also developing programmes to bring back their own citizens.

When the State decides to help

Lithuania was the first to recognise the potential of reverse migration and began building a multi-level policy: a national diaspora strategy (Global Lithuania), an advisory centre Grįžtu LT under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and local initiatives such as International House Vilnius.

The Bulgarian initiative even follows the Lithuanian model in name. Before “I Choose Bulgaria” appeared in 2025, Lithuania already had a platform known as Renkuosi Lietuvą – “I Choose Lithuania”. Today the official tool is the advisory centre Grįžtu LT under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – “I Return to Lithuania”, which since 2024 has brought together in one place information on work, education, healthcare, social security, business, municipalities and return with foreign family members.

In 2024, 18,934 Lithuanian citizens returned to Lithuania, while 9,486 left – almost half as many. This is the fifth consecutive year in which returning Lithuanian citizens outnumber those who left. The trend continues in 2025, when 19,310 people returned home and 9,940 left.

Bulgaria followed in 2025 with the “I Choose Bulgaria” initiative, funded by the European Human Resources Development Programme with €13.5 million. It offers financial support to Bulgarians who decide to return and start work in the country.

The more than 1,880 approved applicants already receive funds for relocation, rent, transport, integration and incentives for maintaining employment. Nearly 80% of those approved under the programme are aged 30 to 40. Most of the Bulgarians returning from abroad came from the United Kingdom and Germany, followed by the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria and Ireland; few are from countries outside Europe. Among them there are both highly qualified people and a significant proportion working in construction and industry.

The Employment Agency has now launched the second stage of “I Choose Bulgaria” for 1,170 Bulgarians abroad who choose to live in small settlements with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. Bulgarian institutions will assess the overall effect of the programme next year.

Lithuania has shown that reverse migration does not begin with state programmes. They come when economic and social changes have already reversed the direction of movement. Bulgaria is still trying.

But it will not be European projects that convince people to return. Only a state in which higher incomes go hand in hand with the rule of law, functioning institutions and a sense of justice can do that.

The migration figures this article features (via the embedded post) come from the German research institute DataPulse study on the net migration of native-born citizens across Europe.

Caption: Illustrative photo. A Pegasus Airlines flight taxis on the runway at Manchester Airport in Manchester, Britain, 2 June 2026. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN