Most moved to countries: Seven Seas Worldwide's Movers Report 2025

What is net migration?

Net migration represents the difference between the number of people entering a country (immigration) and those leaving it (emigration) over a specified period, typically one year. A positive rate indicates that more people are moving to a country than departing it, while a negative rate suggests that more citizens are moving away. 

It's a helpful indicator of a nation's overall migration balance, reflecting economic equality, safety, political stability, and quality of life. Countries with higher net migration rates are often seen as attractive destinations for work, education, or a better standard of living.

However, net migration doesn't always tell the whole story. While it highlights the balance of people moving, it cannot explain the reasons behind these relocations or the types of migration involved — such as refugees, temporary workers, or returning citizens. A country might have a high inflow due to conflict in a neighbouring region, or a low one because of strict immigration policies rather than low desirability. 

For that reason, while net migration is a valuable starting point, it's best understood alongside other factors, such as the cost of living, employment opportunities, and crime rates, to accurately assess global migration trends.

Our methodology: how we calculated the Seven Seas Move Score

To determine our Seven Seas Move Score, we analysed data from over 20 trusted statistical bodies covering migration patterns, economic conditions, safety, and quality of life for 173 countries. The only nations not included in our report are those with populations less than 150,000 (such as Liechtenstein, the Seychelles and Micronesia) and North Korea, due to a lack of quality data. 

We then used the following migration methodology to work out each country's final score (between 0 and 1):

1. Data collection

We began by gathering figures from reputable organisations such as the IMF, World Bank Group, Transparency International, Numbeo, and the United Nations. Each metric represented a specific factor that affects how appealing a country is to live in, work in, or relocate to — for example, net migration rates, GDP per capita, corruption levels, life expectancy, and environmental performance.

To reflect migrants' differing priorities, these statistics were then grouped into six categories: Migration Flow, Cost Efficiency, Innovation Hub, Security Score, Living Standard, and Travel Appeal.

2. Normalisation of the data

As each dataset uses different measurements, such as percentages, scores, or index values, we normalised the data to make fair comparisons between countries, converting all values to a scale between 0 (lowest performance) and 1 (highest performance).

• For metrics where higher values are better (such as GDP per capita or life expectancy), higher scores translate to higher normalised values.
• For metrics where lower values are better (such as the unemployment rate or cost of living), the scale is reversed so that lower figures produce higher scores.

3. Each category is averaged

The normalised scores for each country were then averaged within their category. For example, a country's "Cost Efficiency" would reflect the average of its normalised results for local purchasing power, cost of living, GDP per capita and wealth inequality.

4. And each category is assigned a weight

Next, we assigned each of the six categories a weight to reflect their impact on migration decisions:

• Migration Flow: 30% (most important)
• Cost Efficiency: 20%
• Innovation Hub: 15%
• Security Score: 10%
• Living Standard: 10%
• Travel Appeal: 10%

The weighted scores for each country were then calculated to create the final Seven Seas Move Score — a single, comparable figure that shows overall liveability and appeal for new arrivals.

5. Ranking the countries

Finally, we ranked all countries from highest to lowest based on their Seven Seas Move Score. A higher score indicates stronger performance across the combined economic, safety, and quality-of-life indicators — making that country one of the most moved-to destinations of 2025.