Nepal Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast; index & images ($)

British Overseas Subjects

 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Nepal, index and images, ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Nepal, index and images, ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Nepal, index and images, ($)

Finding the Town of Origin in Nepal
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Nepal, see Nepal Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Nepal Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration into Nepal

 * By the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, under its Rana dynasty of premiers. The country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and British India.
 * Nepal has a long tradition of accepting immigrants and refugees.
 * In modern times, Tibetans and Bhutanese have constituted a majority of refugees in Nepal.
 * Tibetan refugees began arriving in 1959, and many more cross into Nepal every year.
 * The Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees began arriving in the 1980s and numbered more than 110,000 by the 2000s. Most of them have been resettled in third countries.
 * In late 2018, Nepal had a total of 20,800 confirmed refugees, 64% of them Tibetan and 31% Bhutanese. Economic immigrants, and refugees fleeing persecution or war, from neighboring countries, Africa and the Middle East, are termed "urban refugees" because they live in apartments in the cities instead of refugee camps, lack official recognition; the government facilitates their resettlement in third countries.
 * Around 2,000 immigrants, half of them Chinese, applied for a work permit in 2018/19.
 * The government lacks data on Indian immigrants as they do not require permits to live and work in Nepal; the Government of India puts the number of Non-Resident Indians in the country at 600,000.
 * According to the 2001 census, there were 116,571 foreign born citizens in Nepal; 90% of them were of Indian origin followed by Bhutan, Pakistan and China.This number does not include the refugees from Bhutan and Tibet.

Emigration From Nepal
KNOMAD Statistics: Emigrants :1,986,200. Top destination countries: India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Malaysia, Kuwait, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Australia