Strong emigration after the pandemic: At least 164,000 more Albanians have left the country than have returned

An alarming figure of more than 166,400 Albanians is estimated to have left the country during the post-pandemic years, from January 1, 2021 to 2026, highlighting a further deepening of Albania’s demographic crisis and emigration trend in a population that is already smaller and older.

This unusually high level of emigration indicates that economic and human capital policies, instead of encouraging people to return, continue to fuel departures even 35 years after the fall of communism.

The latest official data from INSTAT on net migration for the 2011–2026 period show that, once global travel restrictions were eased in 2021, net migration rose sharply to minus 32,853 people, a trend that remained almost unchanged in 2022, with a net loss of 32,497 people.

This persistent outflow peaked in 2024, when the largest population loss of the decade was recorded, with a negative balance of 43,761 people, partly due to revisions stemming from the population census, where data covering two years were consolidated into a single year.

In the following two years, 2025 and 2026, more than 57,300 people left the country, or over 28,000 people per year. Compared with the resident population, these figures remain exceptionally high and indicate that the demographic hemorrhage shows no sign of slowing down.

“KORÇA BOOM”