Thousands of white South Africans abroad, including those in the United States, are returning home.

Reuters news agency reports that at least 12,000 foreign-based white South Africans have checked the status of their citizenship in preparation of making a permanent return to the African nation.

This is in response to the South African government's November 2025 decision to overturn a law introduced in 1995 stripping some South Africans of their citizenship after leaving the country.

While US President Donald Trump alleged in early 2025 that white South Africans were being unfairly targeted through what he described as "discriminative" laws relating to land ownership and labour service, many of them hold a contrary opinion, and have decided to return home.

Trump's refugee deal

For instance, in 2022 alone, though Trump was not in office at the time, official records show that 15,000 white South Africans returned to the country that year.

After Pretoria overturned the 1995 law on citizenship loss, at least 1,000 people reclaimed their South African nationality and formally asked to return home.

While President Trump offered a refugee deal for white South Africans seeking relocation to the US, records show that 3,500 have taken up the offer — a figure negated by the thousands of South Africans heading the opposite direction.

A South African relocation and employment agency told Reuters that in the last six months, it had received a 70% surge in enquiries from white South Africans seeking to return home.

Reasons for moving to South Africa

Another agency reported a 30% increase since 2024, indicating the increased interest in settling in South Africa.

Some of the interviewed returnees said their reasons for returning to South Africa included the need to be close to family; lower cost of living; escalating political tensions abroad, especially in the United States; ability to work remotely, improved availability of electricity in South Africa, and the sentimental attachment to one's country of birth.

Many of those who left South Africa in the previous years are Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch nationals who settled in the country many years ago.

Trump said that this group of South Africans was particularly being targeted by unfair laws, an allegation that South Africa, through President Cyril Ramaphosa, strongly denied.

Land ownership and labour patterns

Records show that whites constitute about 7% of South Africa's 63 million people, but they occupy approximately 70% of the country's farmland.

While the unemployment rate among Black South Africans stands at 35%, it is 8% among the whites there. The national average is slightly over 31%.