Is the grass always greener? Moving abroad is often seen as an exhilarating adventure, a chance to explore new horizons and embrace different cultures. However, beneath the surface of excitement can lie fears and regrets, or as we’re coining: ‘Regretspats’.
These regrets can be physical and emotional obstacles on the path to creating a fulfilling life in a new country. In our quest to uncover these challenges, we’ve reviewed the stories of 2,873 expats analysing more than 7,000 regrets to find some common themes and offer some advice on how to avoid them.
Key findings:
- Being homesick (30.9%), difficulty finding work (26.6%) and struggling with the cost of living (25.7%) are the top three reasons people move back home.
- Expats reported struggling to make friends (16.6%) and a strong pull to go home to be with their existing friends and family (13.2%) as the other main reasons making the top 5.
- People leaving Canada, UK, Australia, mentioned struggling with making friendships the most of any location analysed.
- Immigrants leaving Australia, Canada, Germany, mentioned cost of living struggles the most in the dataset.
What are the main reasons expats move back home?
Using AI we analysed thousands of comments from the subreddit /r/expats, Reddit’s community of more than 181,000 expats, finding more than 7,000 reasons why expats report giving up on their immigration goals and heading back home.
Some reasons pulled expats back, such as family emergencies (9.3%), while others, like difficulty finding jobs (21.4%) were factors that pushed new migrants out. The table below reveals the top 20 reasons found in our sample dataset.
| Rank | Reason | Proportion of Expats Who Gave This Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Homesick | 30.9% |
| 2 | Difficulty finding work | 26.6% |
| 3 | Cost of living | 25.7% |
| 4 | Struggling to make friends | 16.6% |
| 5 | Wanting to be with home friends/family | 13.2% |
| 6 | Feeling displaced | 13.1% |
| 7 | Family emergencies | 11.6% |
| 8 | Healthcare system issues | 7.2% |
| 9 | Weather and climate | 11.0% |
| 10 | Missing home food and drink | 6.8% |
| 11 | Language barrier | 5.8% |
| 12 | General dislike for the country | 5.1% |
| 13 | Legal and bureaucratic issues | 4.2% |
| 14 | Loneliness and isolation | 3.6% |
| 15 | Racism/xenophobia | 3.1% |
| 16 | Tax issues | 3.0% |
| 17 | Fitness/exercise | 2.9% |
| 18 | Humour differences | 2.4% |
| 19 | Career barriers | 2.2% |
| 20 | Mental health problems | 2.1% |
Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. The main reason expats move back home is the overwhelming feeling of being homesick (24.9%). But digging into the data further, we can find more specifics that might contribute to this homesickness.
Struggling to find work and facing challenges with the cost of living made up the top three reasons people have to return home. People leaving Australia, Canada, Germany, mentioned cost of living struggles the most in the dataset. In recent years, cities in Australia and Canada especially have seen sharp rises in the cost of living.
More reasons discussed were difficulties making friends, and a desire to be close to friends and family back home are the main reasons people give up on their immigration dreams. People leaving Canada, the UK, and Australia mentioned struggling with friendships the most of any locations analysed.
Family emergencies was the seventh-most given reason for returning home. Our research found that most of these comments were specifically to do with looking after aging parents, something that’s costly to do from afar if having to rely on care services.
When it came to complaints about the weather and climate, it was almost always a desire to be somewhere more sunny, or for countries in northern Europe, when days are too short due to the lack of sunlight.
It’s fortunate that mental health problems was one of the least mentioned reasons for returning home being reported by 2.1% of ex-expats. However, it should be noted that people may not feel comfortable discussing this on a public forum, or they didn’t feel like it was the ‘main’ reason for them calling it a day.
What can be done about these expat regrets?
As experts on all things moving abroad, we know many of these problems are very common, but there are often solutions or ways to ease difficulties when settling into a new life.
Immigrants should work on building stronger social networks, exploring hobbies to combat loneliness, seeking mental health support when needed, and staying connected with loved ones back home. That can make for a very busy schedule, so keeping set times of the month/week for catching up with family back home can help to ensure your old and new life can mesh effectively. We recommend checking out local Facebook groups for interests you have to find like-minded people.
Some other tips we have for common problems:
- Language barrier: Enroll in language classes or language exchange programs to improve communication skills and better integrate into the local community.
- Cultural integration: Participate in cultural events, join local clubs or organisations, and immerse yourself in the traditions of your host country to foster a sense of belonging.
- Job assistance: Seek out networking opportunities, connect with expat job boards, target jobs with skills shortages, and consider working with recruitment agencies specialising in expat placements.
- Homesickness and loneliness: Stay connected with family and friends through regular calls or video chats, meet fellow expats or locals for social activities, and create a comforting space in your home with familiar items from your home country.
- Mental health support: Prioritise self-care, seek professional help if needed, and consider joining support groups or online forums for expats to share experiences and advice.
Moving to a new country is not easy, but it could be the best decision you make in your life if you get it right. Even if you move abroad and it doesn’t work out for you, at least you won’t regret not having tried.
Research methodology
We reviewed the /r/expats subreddit, analysing 7,004 reasons expats moved home from a sample of 2,873 comments using ChatGPT (GPT-4). Sentiment analysis was used to verify whether comments were complaints or praise, however, the initial dataset was created by scraping subreddits specifically discussing regrets and reasons people returned home. Further manual human analysis was done across the data to ensure accuracy of themes and reasons.
It should be noted that this forum skews more towards discussions of Western nations, however, various countries around the world featured in the dataset. The following countries were discussed by expats in the dataset and analysed: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, UAE, UK, United States.
Other destinations may have appeared but at a low frequency and therefore were not analysed. Data was analysed February 2025