Living in Rwanda

Rwanda has set out to be easy to do business in, and that intent shows in how the working world is organized. Pay still sits well below the global norm and life is inexpensive to go with it, while tax stays light enough that a salary arrives largely whole, even if what is left over is slim. English has been adopted as a language of work but still carries mainly within certain sectors rather than everywhere. For someone without local roots, getting hired remains the steepest part of the climb.

Rwanda sits close to migration balance, with about 539K Rwandans abroad only slightly outnumbering the 504.5K foreign-born residents at home. Both sides revolve around the same neighbors: the diaspora, up 9% over the past decade, clusters in DR Congo (286.2K), Burundi, and Uganda — the very countries that send the most people into Rwanda.