also called moving back home · repat · returnee
Returning to live in your home country after time abroad.
Repatriation is simply going back to live in your home country after a stretch abroad, on your own terms. It is worlds apart from deportation, which is being forced out of a country by its authorities; repatriation is your choice. Moving back switches your home country's tax and residency clocks on again and can hit you with paperwork and a strange jolt of reverse culture shock.
After years away you decide to move home. You expect it to feel easy, but you have to re-register for healthcare, re-enter the tax system, and you feel oddly foreign in the place you grew up, more unsettled than you were when you first left.
It reactivates home-country tax and residency and can bring reverse culture shock and re-registration hassles.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
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