Remittances from foreign immigrants living in East Timor sent abroad last year were more than three times what Timorese overseas sent home, according to a World Bank report.
Key Figures
According to the World Bank’s six-monthly economic report on East Timor:
- Timorese workers abroad sent their families approximately $91 million in 2018
- Foreign workers living in East Timor — many from the Asian region — sent out a total of $283 million in the same period
- Remittances from East Timorese workers average around $250,000 per day
Remittances as a Lifeline for Timorese Families
Remittances from East Timorese workers abroad have become the main source of income for many families in the country. This dependence on foreign earnings is driving a significant trend: families are increasingly betting on sending young people to work outside Timor-Leste.
One visible consequence is the large daily flow of young Timorese heading to the Portuguese Embassy in Dili to pursue Portuguese nationality — a right accessible to all East Timorese born before 20 May 2002.
Labour Export: Timor-Leste’s Largest Industry
A study on the East Timorese labour market by academics Brett Inder and Katy Cornwell of the Centre for Economics of Development and Sustainability at Monash University (Australia), along with research by Richard Curtin of the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University, underscores the scale of this phenomenon.
By 2017, more than 85,000 transfers were being made to Timor-Leste annually. These studies conclude that the country’s workforce has effectively become its largest export — surpassing both:
| Sector | Annual Revenue |
|---|---|
| Coffee | $10–20 million |
| Tourism | ~$15 million |
| Labour remittances | ~$91 million |
Context: A Low-Wage Economy
The significance of these figures is best understood in the context of East Timor’s domestic economy:
- The minimum wage is approximately $125 per month
- Outside the state sector, job opportunities remain very limited
- The largest source of remittances is the United Kingdom, where average transfers were around $401 (€324)
This combination of limited local employment and access to higher-paying markets abroad makes labour migration — and the remittances that follow — a structural pillar of household income across the country.