Paying Refugees to Leave

States are increasingly paying refugees to repatriate, hoping to decrease the number of refugees residing within their borders. Drawing on in-depth interviews from East Africa and data from Israeli Labour Statistics, I provide a description of such payment schemes and consider whether they are morally permissible. In doing so, I address two types of cases. In the first type of case, governments pay refugees to repatriate to high-risk countries, never coercing them into returning. I argue that such payments are permissible if refugees’ choices are voluntary and if states allow refugees to return to the host country in the event of an emergency. I then describe cases where states detain refugees, and non-governmental organisations provide their own payments to refugees wishing to repatriate. In such cases, non-governmental organisations are only permitted to provide payments if the funds are sufficient to ensure post-return safety and if providing payments does not reinforce the government’s detention policy.