13 countries and Hong Kong became student hosts, not senders

Claim types Estimate · Fact · Interpretation

Estimate: most outbound figures, in both years, are UNESCO UIS estimates built from host countries' reports of where their foreign students come from (claim type Estimate in UIS); inbound figures are reported by each host country (Fact). UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), February 2026 data release (version 20260507-91260335): total inbound internationally mobile students (UIS 26637) and total outbound internationally mobile tertiary students studying abroad (UIS OE.5T8.40510), both sexes, read from UIS via the progrss vault (dataset rows with URL, edition and retrieval date; UIS has 3 value-check matches and no mismatches). UIS data are licensed CC BY-SA: credit UNESCO UIS; shown on plates only, not in licensed packs. Counting rule (progrss calculation): a country is a host when the foreign students it enrols exceed its own students enrolled abroad in the same year. Same 76 countries and territories with both figures in both 2013 and 2023 (aggregates excluded); 2013 is the first year of the current UIS definition of internationally mobile students, and the COVID years 2020-2022 are neither base nor end. Hosts: 31 of 76 in 2013, 43 of 76 in 2023. The count depends on the end years: 11 switchers for 2014 vs 2023, 13 for 2013 vs 2022 (without Mexico, Rwanda, Bulgaria and North Macedonia; with Ireland, Iran and Saudi Arabia); hosts rise in every pairing. Rwanda hosted fewer than it sent in 2022. Switched to hosting more (14): Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hong Kong, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, North Macedonia, Romania, Rwanda, Slovenia, South Korea. Switched to sending more (2): Ghana, Ukraine. Selected values, hosted vs sent abroad, 2013 then 2023: Georgia 3,420 vs 7,182, then 25,105 vs 9,159; Mexico 8,020 vs 28,067, then 72,888 vs 38,560 (Mexico's inbound series is uneven year to year in UIS, e.g. 25,125 in 2017 and 7,223 in 2018, with no 2022 figure); Rwanda 737 vs 6,686, then 7,944 vs 7,253; South Korea 55,536 vs 113,799, then 127,624 vs 89,693 (plate 210). Not in the 76 because a 2013 or 2023 figure is missing: among others the UAE, Russia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and the Netherlands. Outbound counts depend on host countries reporting origins, so they can understate students in hosts that do not report. Map: yellow = the 14 switchers; hover shows foreign students hosted per student sent abroad in 2023. The third takeaway's last clause is Interpretation.