New international student markets emerge each recruitment cycle, with significant shifts requiring institutions to renew their recruitment strategies.
As universities seek to diversify their student bodies and attract more international students, these emerging markets present exciting prospects for institutions and students.
Continue reading for more details about the fastest-growing student markets for 2026.
India overtakes China
China has traditionally led the international student market across every major destination, sending hundreds of thousands of students to countries like the US, the UK, and Australia every year. However, as of 2025, it is no longer necessarily the #1 source of international students.
Following a surge of outbound Indian students in recent years, India has overtaken China as the largest audience for some key study destinations. For example, the Institute of International Education reported via its Open Doors data that there were 363,019 Indian students studying in the US during the 2024/25 academic year compared to 265,919 Chinese students - meaning there are just under 100,000 more Indian students than Chinese. Only two years prior, there were slightly more Chinese students than Indians. That represents a significant jump in the number of Indian students - in fact, their numbers have grown 88% since the 2019/20 academic year.
Similarly, in the UK, the most recent HESA data revealed that Indian enrolments overtook Chinese enrolments during the 2023/24 academic year. It revealed a 205% growth in Indian enrolments between 2019/20 and 2023/24, meanwhile Chinese enrolments have only grown 5% during that timespan.
However, despite India and China remaining the dominant forces in the global education market, many other countries show a rapidly growing potential for international recruiters.
Nigeria
In recent years Nigeria has often been cited as the fastest-growing market in international education, with some experts equating it to India regarding offers made to students.
According to the most recent publication about outbound students from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Nigeria is the country with the 3rd most international students globally, with a total of 146,286 outbound students, ranking behind only China and India.
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Despite recent challenges around the cost of study for Nigerian audiences, the most recent official statistics place Nigeria as the 3rd largest audience for UK and Canadian study, and the 7th largest for study in the US.
Search data from Keystone platforms places Nigeria as one of the largest audiences actively searching for international study globally and Q3 2025 saw their top study destinations as the US (accounting for 13% of all searches), the UK (11%) and Canada (10%), followed by a variety of European destinations.
The Philippines
In 2022, the Canadian Bureau for International Education reported an impressive 112% growth in incoming Filipino, amounting to 4% of all incoming international students that year. That second figure remains true in their most recent data publication and places the Philippines as the 4th most common country of origin in Canadian education, only falling behind the world-leading Chinese, Indian and Nigerian markets.
Another popular destination is Australia, for whom Filipino students are the 5th largest source of international students in 2025 according to the Australian Department of Education.
UNESCO data suggests that this growth is likely to continue, with the most recent figures showing that the number of outbound Filipino students grew 58% between 2020 and 2023. Meanwhile search data from Keystone platforms reveals that the US and Spain are their two most popular study destinations based on searches made in Q3 2025, so it appears likely that we will see increasing numbers of Filipino students in these two destinations in the coming years.
Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh
India is not the only South Asian audience to be booming in recent years, as it's northern neighbors are all emerging simultaneously. The most recent publication about outbound students from UNESCO has found consistent growth in the total number of international students from Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh for a number of years.
Between 2020 and 2023, these three student markets saw a growth of outbound students of 81%, 9% and 53% respectively.
Nepal, therefore, appears to lag by comparison but there is evidence to suggest that the data has not yet caught up to their growth. The most recent HESA publication showed that the UK hosted 12,715 Nepalese students during the 2023/24 academic year, making them the UK's 8th largest international student provider. This figure is up significantly since 2019/20 when the UK hosted only 1,270 Nepalese students - their 20th largest audience that year. In that same timespan Bangladesh rose from 19th to 9th, and Pakistan rose from 17th to 4th.
Other Emerging Markets
Several other emerging markets in Africa and Latin America have significantly grown in the number of students studying abroad.
According to UNESCO, the number of Kenyan, Egyptian and Ghanaian students studying abroad rose 35%, 32% and 25% respectively between 2020 and 2023. Keystone search data shows that in Q3 2025 the most popular study destinations for these audiences were the US, the UK, Italy and Germany. As recently reported, intra-African mobility is also on the rise and their most popular destination within Africa is South Africa.
In Latin America, the number of international students emanating from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia grew by 49%, 19% and 11% respectively between 2020 and 2023 according to UNESCO. Unsurprisingly, search data from Keystone platforms shows that their top international destination is Spain, however, the US, German and Italian study are also popular. As evidence of this, Open Doors data reveals that the number of Peruvian students in the USA increased by 60% between 2019/20 and 2024/25 - Colombian and Ecuadorian figures grew by 21% and 15% too.
Power in strategic collaborations
The evolving landscape presents both challenges and opportunities, leading institutions to adapt and innovate to meet the demands of an ever-changing global education ecosystem. Collaborating with educational institutions, governments, and industry stakeholders will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of higher education. By understanding what students from each country seek, universities can optimize recruitment strategies to stand out in the increasingly competitive international education market.