Where Asia-Pacific Nationals Go
Top & emerging destinations
Hover over a highlighted country for its complete category list.
Central Asia refers to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. South Asia refers to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. East Asia refers to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. Southeast Asia refers to Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
A Russia-dependent system now diversifying
Emigration from Central Asia
Russia currently hosts roughly 6 million Central Asian migrant workers, accounting for over 80% of labor migrants from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and 57%+ from Uzbekistan as of 2025; remittances from Russia contribute a significant portion to their respective GDPs. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan's membership in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) gives their citizens visa-free labor market access across the bloc.
However, Russia's wartime economy, conscription risk for foreign workers, and rising xenophobia have pushed regional governments to actively diversify. Uzbekistan opened an EU- and IOM-backed Migrant Resource Center in Tashkent in August 2025 and is negotiating labor agreements with the UK and Baltic states. Kazakhstan has launched its own campaign to prepare citizens for work abroad. Additionally, EU employment permits issued to Central Asians nearly tripled between 2021 and 2024. South Korea, Türkiye, and the Gulf countries have each absorbed hundreds of thousands of Central Asian workers, and Kazakhstan itself — the region's wealthiest economy — has become a secondary hub, especially for Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Tajik migrants.
Millions abroad, billions in remittances
Emigration from South Asia
India's diaspora has nearly tripled since 1990 and as earlier as 2015 it has been the largest diaspora of any country in the world. Nearly 50% of Indian emigrants live in Gulf countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — with the UAE and the U.S. now the top two individual destinations, each hosting about 17% of Indian emigrants. About 25% of Indian expats live in North America, a share that has grown steadily alongside rising migration to Australia and New Zealand. Pakistan's and Bangladesh's emigration trends are similar to India with many expats going to Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE as contract labor; Pakistan received about $33 billion in remittances in 2024.
Remittances from Nepal equaled 26.2% of GDP in 2024, the seventh-highest ratio of any country in the world, with roughly one in four Nepali households having a member working abroad. Malaysia, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are the top destinations for expats from Nepal by official labor permits, though India is likely the single most common destination overall since no permit is required to work there. Sri Lankan expat trends have shifted sharply since its 2022 economic crisis: a record 314,673 Sri Lankans left to work abroad in 2024, and the share of those living abroad and in skilled or professional categories rose from 66% in 2022 to over 75% by 2025, marking a pronounced brain-drain trend that has pushed the country to 16th of 175 nations on the Fund for Peace's Human Flight and Brain Drain Index, the most severely ranked for all of South Asia.
Skilled emigration and labor migration
Emigration from East & Southeast Asia
China ranks first in the world for the number of wealthy individuals leaving each year. Top destinations for these emigrants are the U.S., Canada, and Singapore. Separately, China's broader overseas population — including long-settled diaspora communities across Southeast Asia dating back to the 19th century — exceeds an estimated 50 million people, with Indonesia alone home to over 10 million people of Chinese descent.
Expat relocation from the Philippines remains the region's most labor-driven with expats sending a record $38.34 billion to the Philippines in remittances, about 8.3% of the Philippines' GDP. Saudi Arabia hosts the largest single share of workers from the Philippines, nearly 22%, with the Middle East collectively accounting for almost 50%; the U.S., Singapore, and the UAE round out the leading remittance-source countries.
Vietnam's overseas population reached an estimated 6.5 million people across more than 130 countries and territories as of August 2026. The largest single community is in the U.S., followed by Japan, France — reflecting colonial-era ties — Australia, and South Korea. A significant and growing share of Vietnamese emigration in recent years has taken the form of technical-intern and contract-labor placements in Japan and South Korea, alongside longer-established settlement patterns in the U.S. and Europe.
Frameworks for Regional Mobility
Since 2003, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has signed Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) covering seven professional categories — engineering, architecture, accountancy, surveying, tourism, and, more recently, medicine, dentistry, and nursing — intended to let credentialed professionals practice across the bloc's 11 member states without requalifying in each country. Registration under an MRA does not itself grant a work visa or right of entry — professionals still need an individual job offer, visa, and work permit from the host country.
Most of the region's largest skilled-labor exporters bypass the ASEAN framework at least in part: Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, is targeting 500,000 overseas placements by 2029 through its government-run "SMK (Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan; vocational high school) Go Global" program, phased from 40,000 in 2026 up to 180,000 in 2028 — specifically to Japan, South Korea, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, Türkiye, Taiwan, and other European countries. With this program, the Indonesian government is aiming to mitigate domestic youth/vocational unemployment, boost remittances and foreign exchange reserves, build skills abroad that eventually return home ("brain circulation"), and shift workers from informal, unregulated, or unsafe migration channels into official, government-tracked ones.
The regional hub
Singapore & intra-regional migration
Singapore functions as a majority-immigrant-descended population that is simultaneously a top destination for skilled Asia-Pacific professionals. As of June 2024, ethnic Chinese residents numbered approximately 3.09 million of Singapore's 6.04 million total population — the largest single ethnic group in a country whose population also includes substantial Malay and Indian communities, alongside a large non-resident workforce. Japan and South Korea play a related but more contract-labor-oriented role: both rely on structured temporary-worker programs — Japan's Technical Intern Training Program and South Korea's Employment Permit System — to bring in Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, and other Southeast Asian labor, typically on fixed-term, employer-sponsored visas.
Before you relocate
Planning in advance
Relocating abroad brings practical questions well beyond the move itself — from remittances and banking access, to healthcare coverage, tax obligations, and citizenship status. Dual citizenship policy varies widely across the region: for example, China does not permit it at all and India's OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) is a substitute that stops short of dual citizenship, also not allowed.
- Building credit history abroad from scratch is a common early hurdle, since credit profiles generally do not transfer internationally on their own. While there are some services that do allow expats to transfer their credit history for use by partner lenders there are limitations including limited country coverage. As such, a secured card remains a typical option.
- National ID-linked banking systems generally don't transfer across borders. India's Aadhaar and PAN systems, and the Philippines' PhilSys national ID are some examples. Expats typically need to re-establish identity verification from scratch with destination-country banks regardless of how established their home-country ID and banking history are.
- Digital remittance platforms are increasingly the default channel for expats from South and Southeast Asia, typically undercutting traditional bank and money-transfer-operator fees. However, average costs for remittances into the region, around 5.8%, still sit above the UN's 3% Sustainable Development Goal target.
- India has Social Security Agreements with over 20 countries — including Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea — allowing contribution totalization and exemption from double social-security payments. India has no such agreement with the U.S., UK, UAE, Singapore, or most Gulf states, despite these being among the largest actual destinations for Indian expats.
- Both India and the Philippines tax expats only on domestic-sourced income. India taxes Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) only on India-sourced income, provided residency thresholds — fewer than 182 days in India in a tax year, with additional conditions for high earners — are met. The Philippines exempts workers abroad and other non-resident citizens from income tax on foreign-earned income, but qualifying as a non-resident citizen generally requires at least 183 days abroad in the tax year plus valid documentation of international employment. Consult with a tax authority for specific guidance.
- China and Vietnam both tax on a residence basis. For Vietnam, it’s 183+ days present in a calendar year (or any rolling 12-month period), or a permanent/leased residence in-country for 183+ days. For Chinese expats abroad, worldwide-income liability is generally driven by domicile — household registration, family, or economic ties to China — so most Chinese emigrants remain tax-liable on worldwide income regardless of time spent abroad unless they take affirmative steps to sever those ties. Enforcement of worldwide-income reporting for citizens who've moved abroad has tightened in recent years, making professional guidance even more important.
- Skilled healthcare workers emigrating from the Philippines and India, particularly nurses and doctors moving to the US, UK, Canada, and Gulf countries, typically gain access to host-country employer or national healthcare systems, but should confirm credential-recognition timelines, since licensing delays can leave a coverage gap during transition.
- Contract workers in Gulf countries, particularly domestic and construction workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, should be aware that healthcare coverage is often tied directly to employer sponsorship. As such, losing employer sponsorship can mean losing healthcare access simultaneously with losing legal residency status.