The Global Expat Family Survey 2026

An independent report from GlobalSchoolGuide Research. No school pays to be included. This 2026 edition is a synthesis of published, externally sourced surveys, each attributed in full, framed alongside GlobalSchoolGuide's own analysis framework. It does not present any primary GlobalSchoolGuide survey percentages. It also launches an ongoing GlobalSchoolGuide survey that families are invited to join.

Executive summary

Expat families make one of the highest stakes consumer decisions there is. A school choice shapes a child's friendships, academic pathway and sense of home, it is made under time pressure during a relocation, and it is often made between two real offers in an unfamiliar city. Yet the evidence base parents draw on is thin and scattered. Marketing claims sit next to forum threads, and the few rigorous parent satisfaction surveys that exist are rarely read side by side. This report pulls that published evidence into one place, reads it honestly, and sets out what it does and does not tell relocating families.

The picture that emerges is broadly reassuring but uneven. Where expat parents rate the education their children receive, satisfaction is generally positive and frequently higher than at home, though it varies sharply by destination. Where families move schools, the dominant driver is fit rather than failure. And where families look back on the move itself, most say they would do it again, even when individual decisions along the way could have gone better. The recurring regret is not the relocation. It is the rushed, under informed school choice made inside it.

Every figure above is drawn from a named external source and is attributed again in the analysis and references below. None is a GlobalSchoolGuide primary survey result.

Key statistics

The indicators below frame the report. Each comes from a published external survey and is captioned with its source. They describe the wider expat and school choice population rather than a single international school cohort, which is one reason GlobalSchoolGuide is opening its own survey to fill the gap.

Sources: HSBC Expat Explorer (education quality, cost), Christensen Institute (switching), FinGlobal (children at home). See methodology and data sources.

Why this report exists

The international schools sector is large and well documented at the level of supply. ISC Research records close to 14,800 K to 12 international schools educating around 7.4 million students, and the platform's own State of International Schools 2026 maps that landscape in detail. What is far less well documented is the demand side experience. How do the parents who chose those schools feel a year later, three years later, after a second move. That question rarely gets answered in a structured, comparable way.

There are good reasons for the gap. International school parents are mobile and hard to track over time. Schools that survey their own families have an obvious incentive not to publish unflattering results. And the broad expat surveys that do exist, useful as they are, tend to ask about life abroad in general rather than about the specific school decision. The result is that a parent searching for honest, independent insight into how a school choice tends to turn out has very little to go on.

This report addresses that in two ways. It assembles the best published evidence that bears on the question and reads it carefully, so that families have a single, sourced reference rather than a scatter of claims. And it launches an ongoing, independent GlobalSchoolGuide survey designed specifically around the international school decision, so that future editions can report directly on the experiences of families who used the platform and others who did not. The intent is to build, over time, the parent side counterpart to the supply side data the sector already has.

How satisfied expat parents are

The strongest published evidence on satisfaction comes from large expat surveys that ask parents to compare education abroad with education at home. The headline is positive but qualified. On HSBC Expat Explorer reporting, a substantial minority of expat parents rate the quality of their children's education abroad as better than in their home country, with the global average sitting at roughly a third and earlier waves of the survey recording higher figures still. Crucially, the average hides enormous variation between destinations.

That variation is the real finding. In Singapore, HSBC reporting has found a clear majority of expat parents rate education as better than at home, far above the global figure. The Netherlands scores strongly on the wellbeing and quality of children's schooling. InterNations Expat Insider, which rates dozens of aspects of life abroad on a seven point scale across a Family Life Index, produces a similar spread. Finland has ranked at the top, with a large share of expat parents calling the quality of education excellent and very few raising any concern about children's health, safety or wellbeing. Israel and the Czech Republic also score well, the latter helped by education being seen as affordable.

What should a relocating parent take from this. First, that satisfaction with international and expat education is generally high enough to be reassuring, and that for many families the move improves their child's schooling rather than compromising it. Second, that the destination matters more than any single school brand, because the local system, regulation and cost environment set the conditions every school operates in. A family weighing two cities is, in part, weighing two satisfaction baselines. The platform's city guides for Singapore, Amsterdam and Dubai exist precisely so that families can read those baselines before they commit.

A third, quieter point sits underneath the numbers. Satisfaction surveys capture parents who have already settled and self selected into staying. They tell us less about the families who moved school, moved city or moved home because the first choice did not work. That survivorship effect is one reason the switching evidence in the next section matters as much as the satisfaction scores.

Why families switch schools

School switching is the clearest behavioural signal of how a choice turned out, and here the best published evidence comes from school choice research rather than expat surveys. The Christensen Institute's study of families who moved a child to a new school found that the single most common reason for starting a search was dissatisfaction with the previous school or a desire for a better fit, cited by about 32 percent of switching families. Routine transitions followed: moving up to a new school level at about 26 percent, a child entering school for the first time at about 20 percent, and moving or relocation at about 16 percent.

For expat families that last category is not a minor footnote. Relocation is a constant feature of the international school population, so the relocation trigger that affects roughly one in six switching families in general sits on top of, not instead of, the fit and dissatisfaction drivers. An expat family can face both at once: a move forces a change, and the school chosen in haste then proves a poor fit, prompting a second change. The compounding of these triggers is part of why some international school families change schools more than once in a posting.

The barriers to switching are as instructive as the triggers. National School Choice Awareness Foundation data identifies the leading obstacles families face when they want to move a child: fear of disruption at about 33 percent, uncertainty about making the wrong choice at about 26 percent, limited availability or waiting lists at about 26 percent, and transport at about 25 percent. Three of those four are familiar to any expat parent. Disruption is acute when a child has already changed countries. The fear of a wrong choice is sharper in an unfamiliar system. And waiting lists are the defining constraint in the highest demand cities, a point the State of International Schools 2026 documents for Dubai, Singapore and Amsterdam.

Read together, the switching evidence carries a practical message. Families switch mainly because of fit, and they hesitate to switch mainly because of friction. The way to avoid both is to choose well the first time, with a wide enough shortlist that fit is tested before enrolment rather than after. That is the logic behind shortlisting three to five schools and using a structured comparison rather than committing to the first available place.

What parents wish they had known

Across published expat research and the platform's own reading of the market, four themes recur whenever parents reflect on what they would tell their earlier selves. None is surprising in isolation. Their consistency is the point.

The first is cost, and specifically the gap between headline tuition and the true cost of a place. HSBC Expat Explorer reporting finds almost two thirds of expat parents say it costs more to raise children abroad than it would at home, and tuition is only part of that. Registration and assessment charges, refundable and non refundable deposits, capital levies, transport, meals, uniform and examination entry can add a fifth or more to the published fee. Families who budget only for tuition are the ones most often caught out. The platform's International School Fee Index 2026 and the fee calculator exist to make the real number visible before a family commits.

The second is timing. In the highest demand cities the strongest schools fill early and operate waiting lists, so a family that begins the search after arrival, with a single school in mind, is the one most likely to struggle. Parents repeatedly wish they had started earlier and kept more options live. The third is curriculum, which parents tend to treat as a label at the point of choice and as a consequential decision only later, when a child approaches examinations and university entry. The choice between an IB pathway and an A level or AP pathway shapes teaching style and university options, and is hard to reverse late.

The fourth theme is the one parents mention least at the point of choosing and most in hindsight: that a child's experience depends at least as much on settling in socially as on the academic offer. A strong school where a child has no friends is a worse outcome than an ordinary school where they thrive. Published work on relocating children, including Allianz Care's reporting on the challenges families face, stresses how much the social transition matters, a theme the settling in section returns to.

GlobalSchoolGuide synthesis of recurring themes in published expat research. Cost figure: HSBC Expat Explorer.

Regret, and whether families would do it again

The most important question for a parent weighing a move is also the hardest to answer honestly: looking back, was it worth it. The published evidence here is encouraging and worth stating plainly, because the anxious framing of relocation tends to crowd it out. A FinGlobal survey of expat parents found that a majority would not have done anything differently, and that almost all, around 94 percent, said their children regard the new country as home. That is not the profile of a population that regrets moving.

Two qualifications keep this honest. The first is the survivorship point already noted. Surveys of settled expat parents under sample the families who moved back or moved on because things did not work, so the true regret rate across everyone who ever relocated with children is almost certainly higher than the figure settled families report. The second is that regret, where it appears, tends to attach to specific decisions rather than to the move itself. Parents who express regret more often point to a rushed school choice, an underestimated budget, or a curriculum picked without enough thought, than to the relocation as a whole.

This distinction is the practical heart of the report. The move itself is, on the available evidence, something most families are glad they made. The avoidable regret clusters around the school decision taken inside the move, under time pressure and with poor information. That is exactly the decision an independent guide can improve, which is why the platform's tools and the new survey both centre on it.

The child's experience and settling in

Parent satisfaction and child wellbeing are related but not the same, and the published evidence on children deserves its own treatment. The dominant theme in work on relocating children is that the social transition, not the academic one, is the hard part. Allianz Care and other expat health and relocation sources describe how leaving an established peer group, a familiar routine and a known language can produce stress, anxiety and behavioural change, and how this is sharpest for children roughly between the ages of ten and fifteen, whose identity is closely tied to their friendships. The term expat child syndrome is used in this literature to describe the cluster of difficulties some children experience after a move.

The reassuring counterweight is that most children adapt, and many flourish. The same FinGlobal finding that almost all expat children come to regard the new country as home points to a strong capacity to settle, given time and support. The variables that help are well rehearsed: involving children in the decision where age allows, choosing a school with genuine pastoral and induction support, protecting continuity of language and curriculum where possible, and not underestimating how long a full settling in can take.

For school choice specifically, this shifts the weight of the decision. The academic offer and examination results matter, but a relocating family is often better served by a school with strong induction, an active community of similar families and a track record of integrating mid year arrivals than by a marginally more prestigious school with weaker pastoral care. English as an additional language support, counselling provision and a buddy system are not soft extras for a moving child. They are part of the academic outcome, because a child who has not settled does not learn well. The platform's Relocate hub is built around this reality rather than around tuition alone.

The GlobalSchoolGuide analysis framework

Because the published surveys were not built around the international school decision, GlobalSchoolGuide reads them through a consistent framework that the ongoing survey is designed to populate directly. The framework separates a family's experience into five dimensions, each of which can be high or low independently of the others. A school can score well academically and poorly on settling in, or be excellent value yet hard to get into. Treating these as separate axes is what stops a single headline number from hiding the trade offs that families actually face.

GlobalSchoolGuide analysis framework. The ongoing survey is structured around these five dimensions.

The framework also clarifies what the published evidence can and cannot tell us. Satisfaction surveys speak mainly to academic fit and confidence. Cost surveys speak to value. Switching and waiting list data speak to access and to confidence after the fact. Work on relocating children speaks to settling in. No single existing survey covers all five for international school parents specifically, which is the gap the GlobalSchoolGuide survey is built to close.

The ongoing survey and how to take part

The Global Expat Family Survey is an independent, ongoing study of how international school choices turn out, run by GlobalSchoolGuide Research. It is open to any parent who has chosen an international or bilingual school for their child, whether or not they used the platform to do so. No school pays to take part, no school can buy a favourable result, and findings will be published only in aggregate. The aim is to build, edition by edition, the structured parent side evidence the sector currently lacks.

The survey is organised around the five framework dimensions above. It asks parents to rate academic fit, value, access, settling in and overall confidence, to say whether they would choose the same school again, and to describe in their own words what they wish they had known. It records the city, curriculum and stage so that results can be reported by market rather than only in aggregate, which is what makes them useful to a family choosing in a specific place.

Methodology is set out transparently up front. Responses are self reported and the sample will be self selecting in early waves, so initial editions will report directions and ranges rather than precise population figures, and will say so clearly. As the response base grows, results will be weighted by city and curriculum to reduce that bias, and the method will be published alongside the findings. Primary GlobalSchoolGuide figures will appear in future editions and will be labelled as primary survey data to distinguish them from the synthesised external figures used here.

Families who would like to take part can register their interest through the GlobalSchoolGuide contact page. Subscribers to The Expat School Insider will be notified when each wave of results is published. The more families who contribute, the more useful the next edition becomes, both for the parents who read it and for the schools and mobility teams who rely on honest demand side evidence.

What it means for parents

For families, the synthesis points to a small number of clear, evidence backed conclusions. The first is that the move is usually worth it. Most expat parents are satisfied with the education their children receive, many find it better than at home, and most would relocate again. Anxiety about the decision is natural, but the weight of published evidence is reassuring rather than cautionary.

The second is that the destination sets the baseline. Satisfaction varies far more between countries than the global averages suggest, so a family weighing two cities is weighing two different probabilities of a good outcome. Reading a city's baseline, through guides for Singapore, Dubai, Amsterdam or wherever the posting leads, is part of the school decision, not separate from it.

The third is that the avoidable regret is concentrated in the school choice itself, and is genuinely avoidable. The families who report the smoothest experiences do the same things. They start early, they shortlist three to five schools rather than fixing on one, they budget for the full cost rather than the headline fee, they weigh curriculum as a long term decision, and they treat settling in support as part of the academic offer. The platform's Compare tool, fee calculator and School Finder are built to support exactly that process.

What it means for schools and mobility teams

For schools and for the global mobility and human resources teams that move families, the evidence carries its own implications. The first is that demand side transparency is coming. As independent platforms make fees, outcomes and parent experience comparable, families will see further into a school than marketing alone allows, and that rewards genuine quality on every framework dimension, not only academics.

The second is that settling in support is a competitive variable, not a soft one. Given how strongly child wellbeing drives the real outcome of a move, schools with strong induction, active parent communities and serious pastoral and EAL provision will increasingly win the families that have a choice. Mobility teams that brief relocating employees on settling in, not just tuition, will see better retention and fewer failed assignments.

The third is that honest, independent parent data serves everyone. Schools that are genuinely good have nothing to fear from a survey that no institution can buy, and a great deal to gain from being visible to families on the dimensions that matter. The editorial wall that keeps this report independent is what makes its findings worth acting on, for parents and schools alike.

Forward look to 2027

The central expectation for the next year is that the demand side evidence base will start to catch up with the supply side. The structural picture is stable: a large, growing sector, broadly satisfied parents, a move most families are glad they made, and a school decision that remains the main source of avoidable regret. What changes in 2027 is the quality of the evidence families can draw on, as the GlobalSchoolGuide survey accumulates responses and begins to report primary findings by city and curriculum.

Three shifts are likely. Settling in and child wellbeing should rise up the agenda, as the link between social transition and academic outcome becomes harder to ignore. Cost transparency should keep improving, narrowing the gap between headline tuition and the true figure that catches families out. And independent parent evidence should begin to influence school choice in the way independent inspection ratings already do, gradually rewarding schools that perform on every dimension rather than only on prestige.

For families planning a move in the coming year, the message is steady and practical. The move is usually a good decision. The destination sets the odds. And the school choice, made early, on a wide shortlist, with the full cost and the child's wellbeing in view, is the part most within a family's control. Get that right and the published evidence says the rest tends to follow.

Frequently asked questions

Are expat parents satisfied with their children's education abroad?

Published surveys point to broadly positive satisfaction, with important variation by destination. HSBC Expat Explorer reporting has found that around a third of expat parents rate the quality of their children's education abroad as better than at home, rising well above that in destinations such as Singapore and the Netherlands. InterNations Expat Insider data shows similar spread, with strong scores in countries such as Finland, Israel and the Czech Republic.

Why do expat families switch international schools?

Published school choice research from the Christensen Institute finds dissatisfaction with the previous school or a desire for a better fit is the most common single reason families search for a new school, ahead of routine transitions such as moving up a school level, a child starting school, and relocation. For mobile expat families, relocation itself adds a further trigger that settled families do not face.

What do expat parents wish they had known before choosing a school?

Recurring themes in published expat research are the full cost of a place beyond headline tuition, the importance of applying early in high demand cities, the long term consequences of the curriculum choice, and how much a child's experience depends on settling in socially rather than on academics alone.

Do expat parents regret moving abroad with children?

Most published evidence is reassuring. A FinGlobal survey found a majority of expat parents would not have done anything differently and that almost all said their children regard the new country as home. Regret, where it appears, tends to attach to specific decisions such as a rushed school choice rather than to the move itself.

How can I take part in the GlobalSchoolGuide family survey?

The Global Expat Family Survey is an ongoing, independent study open to any parent who has chosen an international school. Families can register their interest through the GlobalSchoolGuide contact page. No school pays to take part and the results will be published in aggregate with a clear methodology.

Is this report based on a GlobalSchoolGuide survey of parents?

This 2026 edition is a transparent synthesis of published parent satisfaction and school choice surveys, each clearly attributed, framed alongside GlobalSchoolGuide's analysis framework. It is also the launch of an ongoing GlobalSchoolGuide survey. Primary figures from that survey will be published in future editions and labelled as such.

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How to cite this report

This report may be cited and quoted with attribution. The suggested reference is:

GlobalSchoolGuide Research. (2026). The Global Expat Family Survey 2026. GlobalSchoolGuide. https://globalschoolguide.com/research/global-expat-family-survey-2026/

Journalists, universities and researchers are welcome to reproduce the charts and tables with credit to GlobalSchoolGuide. Because this edition synthesises external surveys, please also credit the original sources listed below when quoting their figures. The underlying workings behind the synthesis are available on request through the platform's contact page.

Methodology and data sources

This report synthesises published external surveys, curriculum and sector statistics, and GlobalSchoolGuide's own analysis. It does not report any primary GlobalSchoolGuide survey percentages, because the GlobalSchoolGuide survey is only now opening for participation. Every figure quoted is attributed to its external source. The published surveys differ in population, year and method, and are used as directional evidence rather than as a precise census of international school satisfaction. Figures reflecting GlobalSchoolGuide's own analysis are labelled as a GlobalSchoolGuide estimate. Where a number could not be sourced cleanly it has been given as an approximate range or omitted rather than invented.

Primary references:

• HSBC Expat Explorer, expat family life, education quality and the cost of raising children abroad. expatexplorer.hsbc.com
• InterNations, Expat Insider, Family Life Index covering childcare, education quality and children's wellbeing. internations.org
• Christensen Institute, "We Know Parents Are Switching Schools. Now We Know Why.", on reasons families change schools. christenseninstitute.org
• National School Choice Awareness Foundation, national survey on school choice priorities and barriers. schoolchoiceawareness.org
• ISC Research, the international schools market in 2025, for sector scale and demand context. iscresearch.com
• Allianz Care, expat families and the challenges of moving abroad with children. allianzcare.com
• GlobalSchoolGuide, State of International Schools 2026 and International School Fee Index 2026, for sector scale, capacity and fee context.
• GlobalSchoolGuide city, curriculum and fee coverage across more than 50 cities, for the analysis framework and market context.

A note on independence. GlobalSchoolGuide is an independent guide to international schools. No school pays to be listed, ranked or surveyed, and this report carries no sponsored placement. The FinGlobal figures cited on relocation outcomes are drawn from published reporting of that survey. Where figures could not be sourced or honestly modelled, they have been given as ranges or omitted rather than invented.