From Brain Drain to Brain Pain: Why Returning to Nepal Feels Like a Mistake

You know the promise. The one you whisper to yourself while paying an absurd amount for a shoebox apartment in Sydney or a basement flat in London.

“One day, I’m going back.”

It’s not just a plan, it’s a daydream. A deeply personal, quietly persistent vision. You’ll return not just to visit, but to build. That café in Pokhara that doesn’t serve “cold” coffee at room temperature. A fintech app that fixes some very Nepali problem, and maybe even makes money. You’ll finally have time, capital, respect. You won’t just be someone’s cousin visiting for Dashain. You’ll be home.

But then “one day” finally arrives. And your first act back is to wait three hours in line for a PAN card that still doesn’t get processed. That carefully mapped-out reinvention? Suddenly it’s filtered through dusty bureaucracies, job listings that ask if you're “comfortable with Excel,” and well-meaning uncles who say, “So, you quit a dollar job to teach here?”

And that dream? It starts to feel like a joke.

Who’s Coming Back Anyway?

Let’s clear up a myth: this isn’t one wave, it’s two entirely different currents.

Wave 1: The Builders
These are the people returning after a decade of labour in the Gulf, Malaysia, or South Korea. They’ve sent remittance after remittance, endured punishing work, and are finally back, usually with enough to build a modest home or open a shop. But many also return in debt, with skills that don’t match Nepal’s job market, and physical or emotional scars that few talk about.

Wave 2: The Brainpower
They’re the graduates from Canberra, coders from Toronto, designers from Berlin. They’re coming back with degrees, networks, work experience, and a gnawing question: can I actually build something meaningful in Nepal?

The Numbers You Don’t See on News Headlines

• Over 639,000 Nepali students received a No Objection Certificate (NOC) in the last decade to study abroad.
  

• As per the Yearly Labour Permit Report published by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, over 800,000 people left Nepal for foreign employment in FY 2081/82 alone; a brain drain pipeline that shows no sign of slowing.
  

• Meanwhile, the number of returning white-collar professionals isn’t even tracked. No official dashboard. No reintegration blueprint.

Nepal is good at waving people off. Not so much at welcoming them back.

Why Return Feels Like Career Suicide

Trying to re-enter Nepal’s professional system is like jamming a MacBook charger into a rusty two-pin socket. It might fit. But you’ll probably blow a fuse.

1. Your Degree is a Souvenir. Your ROI is a Joke.

That £60,000 Master’s in Marketing? Here, it’ll get you a job offer at Rs. 20/30k a month with “great exposure.” Employers don’t know how to value global experience, and the market certainly doesn’t know how to pay for it.

2. Your Skills Are Too Much, and Too Threatening.

You led cross-border product launches, scaled a SaaS business, or ran back-end ops for an Australian mortgage giant. Back in Nepal, they ask: “Do you know Tally?” And if you suggest a new process or tool? That’s not initiative, that’s insubordination.

The truth? You’re “overqualified”, HR-speak for “We can’t afford you and we’re scared you’ll replace us.”

3. Nobody Sent the Welcome Memo

For blue-collar migrants, there’s at least a government playbook: PMEP loans, ReMi support, vocational schemes. For white-collar returnees? Nothing.

No official network. No skills recognition database. No job-matching portal. No incentive for companies to hire you. The system simply wasn’t designed with you in mind.

So What Happens After They Return?

Most of them do what they know best; adapt, hustle, and compromise.

• They freelance from their childhood bedrooms, working for foreign clients on Singapore hours.
  

• They teach part-time at local colleges, explaining global economics to students desperate to leave.
  

• They launch startups, and then get hit by a game called “Guess the Government Policy”, where it’s pretty common for the rules to change mid-play.

Some leave again. Quietly. No farewell dinner this time. Just a one-way ticket and the dull ache of a promise they couldn’t keep.

The Tragedy: We’re Wasting a Golden Opportunity

Returnees don’t just bring back suitcases. They bring back:

• Global networks and investment contacts
  

• Hard-won expertise across sectors
  

• Capital they’re willing to risk
  

• A burning desire to build something that matters

These are the people who could digitize our hospitals, automate government workflows, or build Nepal’s first SaaS unicorn.

Instead, their ambition curdles into frustration. And their departure post-return doesn’t show up in any official remigration stat. But it’s happening. Quietly, consistently, fatally.

What About the Labour-Focused Programs?

Let’s be fair. Nepal has tried, and somewhat succeeded in creating reintegration policies for returning labour migrants:

• PMEP and ReMi offer short-term work and orientation.
  

• Skill certification is being trialed in collaboration with the National Skill Testing Board.

But these are mass-market, low-skill, and politically hijacked programs. According to CESLAM’s study:

• Only 9.2% of returnees found their foreign-earned skills usable in Nepal.
  

• Over 70% of returnees were unaware of government support.
  

• Many reported needing connections just to be considered.

So if the labour-focused programs barely work for labourers, you can imagine how invisible white-collar returnees feel.

This Isn't a Competition

Helping a Gulf returnee shouldn’t mean ignoring the MBA from Melbourne.

You don’t have to choose.

The same country that proudly shares RONB posts when a Nepali lands a full-ride scholarship at Harvard, should have more than a shrug waiting when they return with that degree.

Nepal’s returnee strategy must evolve beyond survival. It must become a national growth strategy.

So, Should You Come Back?

If you're reading this while sipping Tim Hortons in Toronto or procrastinating in a WeWork in Dubai, you might be wondering:

Is it worth it?

The honest answer? It depends.

Because right now, Nepal might not be ready for you. But it’s also not unaware of you.

Things are shifting; slowly, painfully, and unevenly. But if enough of you return, speak up, organize, and refuse to settle, then Nepal won’t have a choice.

And when that happens, the story changes, from one of resignation to reinvention.

Final Thought

For decades, the challenge was getting our people back.

Today, the challenge is giving them a reason to stay.

The future won’t be secured by plugging the brain drain. It’ll be built by those who return anyway. Not for comfort, but for change.

Let’s make sure they don’t have to choose between coming home and giving up.

Because that’s not a choice any country should force its best and brightest to make.

Like What You Read?

Share this with a friend who's thinking of moving back, a sibling who's just landed, or anyone from the Nepali diaspora who's ever wrestled with the dream of returning.

It’s about time we had this conversation.

Until next time,
Stay grounded. Stay global.
— Team Nepali Dias