Banking on a New Beginning
For much of the war, Syria functioned as a cash economy cut off from ordinary international banking. Foreign cards were useless, correspondent banking relationships had collapsed and sanctions made even legitimate transactions difficult. That isolation has been dismantled piece by piece since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December 2024.
The EU lifted its economic sanctions in 2025, Washington wound down broad sanctions of its own and Syria began rebuilding its links to the international banking system. Visa signed an agreement with the Syrian central bank in December, while Mastercard and QNB spent months building the technical infrastructure needed for card payments to work.
Two years ago, the idea of a Syrian president paying for coffee with a Visa card would have seemed far-fetched. Today it sits alongside reopened diplomatic contacts, revived talks over foreign investment and the return of international payment networks to Damascus.
Syrians in Europe Are in No Hurry to Leave
More than 1.6 million refugees had returned to Syria by the end of April 2026, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but most came from countries next door: almost 640,000 from Turkey, around 630,000 from Lebanon and roughly 285,000 from Jordan.
Europe has seen nothing comparable. UNHCR estimated that 1.3 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers were living in European countries at the end of 2024, with Germany, Austria and the Netherlands hosting about three-quarters of them. Germany alone still had 944,060 Syrian citizens registered at the end of October 2025, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz put the figure at roughly 900,000 when he met al-Sharaa earlier this year.
Returns from Germany have remained modest. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees recorded 3,678 Syrians who returned with federal assistance during 2025, while a further 426 departures between December 2024 and the end of January 2026 were financed through programs run by Germany's states.
UNHCR has found a similar reluctance across the rest of Europe. In a survey of Syrian refugees and asylum seekers, only 3% said they planned to return within the following year, and by March 2026 the agency reported that returns from Europe had effectively stalled, with refugees still weighing security conditions and the availability of housing, jobs and public services inside Syria.
Large parts of Syria remain damaged, millions still need humanitarian assistance and security conditions vary widely. But Assad is gone, sanctions are being lifted, foreign investment is returning and the country is being reconnected to ordinary international commerce. Those changes will inevitably sharpen the debate in Europe over how long temporary protection should continue and when larger-scale returns should begin.
