About 2.28 million Syrians under temporary protection, down from 2.9 million, and more than 639,000 returns since December 2024.
Turkey holds the largest Syrian population outside Syria, and it is also where the largest return is happening. Both things are true at once, and the numbers move every month.
The people closest to home were also the least secure where they were, which is why return from Turkey has outpaced return from Europe.
At the end of 2024 Turkey hosted around 2.9 million Syrians under temporary protection. By mid-2026 that had fallen to about 2.28 million, according to the Presidency of Migration Management. UNHCR counted 639,995 returns from Turkey between 8 December 2024 and 30 April 2026; the Turkish authorities put voluntary returns higher, at 667,565.
Istanbul holds the largest single concentration, but the densest communities relative to local population are in the border provinces: Gaziantep, Hatay, Sanliurfa, Kilis and Mersin. Gaziantep in particular became a second centre of Syrian civil society, with Syrian-run businesses, schools, NGOs and newspapers.
This is the detail that shapes everything else. Turkey grants Syrians temporary protection rather than refugee status under the 1951 Convention, to which Turkey applies a geographical limitation. Temporary protection gives the right to stay and access to healthcare and schooling, but it is provisional by design, tied to the province where a person is registered, and it does not lead to permanent settlement in the way asylum does elsewhere.
That provisionality is a large part of why return from Turkey has outpaced return from Europe. People closest to home were also the least secure where they were.
Turkey expanded its border crossing capacity to handle the movement, and returns from Turkey have been the largest single national flow in UNHCR’s figures. Most go back through the crossings into the north and northwest: Idlib and Aleppo governorates have absorbed the largest share of returnees anywhere in the country.
Not everyone is going. Families with children schooled entirely in Turkish, people with businesses, and those whose home areas are still damaged or occupied are the most likely to stay, at least for now.
Turkey is not simply the biggest host country. The legal framework is different from Europe, and it changed the whole shape of Syrian life there.
Turkey keeps a geographical limitation on the 1951 Refugee Convention, so Syrians hold temporary protection rather than refugee status. Provisional by design, and tied to a registered province.
The city became a centre of Syrian civil society in exile: NGOs, media outlets, schools and thousands of Syrian-run businesses, many now relocating back across the border.
Children who arrived as infants in 2012 finished school in Turkish. For many families the language of the children is now the strongest argument against going back.
Most people crossing from Turkey go back to Idlib and Aleppo governorates, which have absorbed the largest share of returnees in the country.
Syrian firms registered in Turkey have become part of the cross-border reconstruction economy, with trade through Bab al-Hawa and the other crossings.
Syrian presence became a central issue in Turkish politics, and public pressure for return built long before Damascus fell. Understanding that explains the speed of the movement since.