Digital Nomads: Why Mauritius is Africa’s new magnet for foreign wealth and tech talent

In December 2025, Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB), the country’s largest bank, and advisory firm Stewards Investment Capital published a report reviewing the economy’s growth over the past year. The paradisiacal nation now has over 4,800 millionaires—individuals with liquid wealth of $1 million or more—including 14 ultra-wealthy centi-millionaires. On a “wealth per capita” basis of $40,800, Mauritius now ranks as the wealthiest country on the continent, blowing past second-placed South Africa.

Wealth per capita measures the average total value of assets, including financial holdings, real estate, and other material property, owned by each person in a country. It is a direct indicator of material prosperity. 

Mauritius, often described as a “melting pot” moulded by centuries of migration and colonial exchange, is positioning itself as a hotbed for global wealth and millionaires seeking comfort, safety, and business predictability and stability.

MCB cited Mauritius as an attractive place to live, work, and plan due to its thriving financial services sector, solid tech infrastructure, competitive tax regime, and strong safety and security, compared to neighbouring countries.

These perks are drawing foreign interest. According to the Bank of Mauritius, the country’s central bank, strong foreign direct investment (FDI) is flowing into the country from France, South Africa, the UK, and the UAE. In H1 2025, South Africa drew R1.7 billion ($103 million) in direct investment into Mauritius, placing it firmly among the country’s most influential foreign investors. 

“Everybody would love to move to Mauritius,” said Alejandra Wolf, co-founder of AfricaNomads, a pan-African coliving and travel platform for digital nomads. “[Due to proximity], South Africa has [visa-free] access to Mauritius, and [Mauritius] is definitely safer. I would think most South Africans making the move would be because of stability.”

Why South African capital keeps choosing Mauritius

South African money didn’t arrive in Mauritius by accident. It follows a path of least resistance, drawn by a sense of familiarity that makes the island feel legible rather than foreign. For Janique Maduray, a South African software engineering student at the African Leadership University (ALU) in Mauritius, the decision is often a rational calculation of cost and stability compared to other global hubs like Dubai.

“I would say it’s more affordable to come to Mauritius depending on what your reason is,” said Maduray. “It’s not too expensive if you’re comparing it to home in South Africa, and you will get good tech understanding and a job market here.”

To facilitate this movement, the Mauritian government has engineered specific policy levers. The country offers occupation permits (OPs) for professionals, investors, and self-employed individuals, alongside long-stay and premium visas that allow foreigners to live and work remotely from the island. Perhaps the most powerful incentive is property-linked residency. 

Foreigners who purchase a home worth at least $375,000 gain permanent residence, a policy that functions like a citizenship-by-investment programme and serves as a direct source of FX for the local economy. Mauritius is also part of a small cohort of African countries that issue digital nomad visas.

Once these investors and nomads arrive, the contrast in daily life often justifies the cost. Safety weighs heavily on the decision-making process. While crime and political uncertainty have become persistent anxieties in South Africa, Mauritius offers a rare predictability. Maduray describes this freedom as a relief from the high-alert existence required in South African cities. The country recorded 27,621 murders between 2023 and 2024, and several major cities like Pietermaritzburg, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Durban have reached “very high” crime index scores above 80; everyday life in these urban centres often involves constant vigilance against violent and property crime.

“In South Africa, crime rates are pretty high. Safety is something that you have to always be alert about, speaking from a perspective of a woman as well,” said Maduray. “Here in Mauritius, you can take a walk at 6 p.m. without fear of being followed; in South Africa, you wouldn’t be advised to do that.”

Beyond safety, the migration is driven by Mauritius’ tax-friendly nature. In South Africa, top earners can face marginal income tax rates as high as 45% plus additional levies on investment income, whereas Mauritius offers a single low flat rate on personal income, creating a stark contrast that many high‑income professionals see as financially irresistible.

“In South Africa, you are taxed according to the income that you earn. The higher you earn, the more tax you are going to pay,” Maduray explained. “However, here in Mauritius, the corporate tax rate is a flat 15% [with the top rate of personal income tax reaching 20% for high earners]. That difference alone plays a big role in why South Africans come here.”

The fiscal environment has turned the island into a strategic launchpad for business. Alexia Jolicoeur, a Mauritian engineering student, said business formation on the island is notably frictionless. The country has successfully positioned itself as a critical entry point for capital entering the continent, said Jolicoeur.

“It is not hard to set up a business in Mauritius, whether you are a local or a foreigner,” said Jolicoeur. “There are a lot of facilities, and it is really easy for you to just set up a business and get going.”

Due to this relative ease, consumer electronics, among other things, are some of the low-cost items imported by South African entrepreneurs, who often sell slightly higher to the Mauritian market perceived for its wealth.

The trade corridor between South Africa and Mauritius has become one of the strongest on the continent, reinforcing why South Africa consistently appears as the only African country among Mauritius’ top sources of FDI.

Blending with the locals

Daily life in Mauritius unfolds at a tempo that often disorients the new arrival. For South Africans accustomed to the persistent hum of cities that run late into the night, the island’s rhythm can feel like an abrupt deceleration. The public transport system, a network of buses that crisscrosses the island, shuts down by evening, leaving those without scooters or cars stranded as the sun sets.

The silence settles in quickly. Jolicoeur notes that this “calm” is the first friction point for her foreign friends who are looking for the buzz of a metropolis.

“If you need medicine or if you want to have a nightlife, everything will already be closed by 8 p.m. It is a really calm country,” Jolicoeur said. Yet, while the physical streets quiet down early, the digital infrastructure remains hyperactive. The island has aggressively integrated fintech into its social fabric to the point where local banking apps have entered the vernacular as verbs. The Juice app by MCB has become the default payment rail for everything from high-end dining to quick errands.

“You can just ‘Juice’ them,” said Maduray, describing the ubiquity of the digital wallet owned by the dominant MCB. “They literally have a sign on the table, and they will be like, ‘This is the Juice QR code,’ and you can just pay digitally. It is pretty efficient.”

That digital fluidity is part of a larger national ambition. The government has drafted a national AI strategy and positioned the country as a forward-thinking “Cyber Island.” Ebène Cybercity, the island’s tech capital, hosts multinational giants like Accenture in glass towers that rise sharply from what were once sugarcane fields. However, the shiny exterior of the “tech hub” narrative obscures a more complex reality on the ground.

Jolicoeur, who navigates this space as an aspiring engineer, argues that while the infrastructure is present, the island is currently functioning more as a conduit for foreign capital than a self-sustaining powerhouse.

Yet the importation of global tech firms has created a friction she describes as a skill mismatch. The jobs arriving in Ebène often require specialised competencies that the local education system is struggling to produce at scale, leaving a paradox of high youth unemployment sitting right next to thousands of open tech positions.

“You say Mauritius is very advanced in AI, but there is still a great skill mismatch,” Jolicoeur explained. “We see that there are a lot of opportunities with multinational tech companies, but we also see that there is a high unemployment. The numbers don’t match.”

Rather than waiting for policy to catch up, locals like Jolicoeur are intervening directly. She founded initiatives like the Tech Safe Club and Protolab, which run hands-on workshops to train young people—specifically young girls—in 3D printing, electronics, and AI literacy.

“We provide hands-on workshops in 3D printing, in AI, and in electronics,” said Jolicoeur. “This is our way of ensuring that this skill mismatch does not keep on increasing.”

For the digital nomad, this creates a unique environment: a destination that offers the peace of an island retreat by night, the friction-free payments of a smart city by day, and a local population that is actively fighting to build the skills necessary to keep up with the capital flowing into their shores.

Building a new life in Mauritius

While the digital infrastructure connects nomads to the world, their physical lives tend to cluster in a specific urban corridor. Foreign professionals do not scatter evenly across the island; they gravitate toward the center, where the amenities of modern life converge.

Jolicoeur notes that most foreigners bypass the remote coastal villages for cities and hubs like Moka, Ebène, Quatre Bornes, Curepipe, and Rose Hill. These areas offer more convenience that mirrors the urban lives they leave behind, placing them within minutes of universities, offices, and shopping centres.

“When foreigners come, especially the high-earning ones, they prefer to take apartments in cities because there are accommodations and buildings reserved just for them,” said Jolicoeur. “Mostly, they would live in cities because accommodations, jobs, and universities are all based there.”

However, this convenience creates a tiered reality in the housing market. The concentration of foreign capital in these zones has pushed up regional land and rental prices, with the country’s residential property price index (RPPI) reaching 187.4 by Q1 2024, according to data from Statistics Mauritius. Compared to a base index value of 100 in 2019, this means that real estate prices have nearly doubled since then, rising to 16.3% in the recent period.

Coastal expat hubs like Grand Baie and Tamarin now see typical apartments and villas renting anywhere from about MUR 40,000 to over MUR 150,000 ($868–$3,254) per month, compared with more modest inland options starting closer to MUR 15,000–25,000 ($325–$542), widening the gap between expat budgets and local incomes. According to Jolicoeur, this makes it more expensive for locals living in these well-serviced enclaves.

“The gap between the salary and the price has only kept increasing,” said Jolicoeur. “Locals like myself often live along the coast where [prices] are cheaper but require a commute.”

Yet for the South African nomad coming in, this cost is often mitigated by the familiarity of the currency. Unlike moving to Europe or the Middle East, where the exchange rate can be punishing, the relationship between the South African Rand and the Mauritian Rupee (R1 equals MUR 2.83*) offers a psychological cushion.

“Currency-wise, it is not a huge jump. It is something you can work with,” said Maduray. “It is not too expensive if you are comparing it to home in South Africa.”

Housing prices are one piece of the puzzle, but adjusting to daily life is another. For digital nomads and foreigners coming in, the trade-off for safety and stability is an entertainment shift. The high-octane urban activities of Johannesburg or Cape Town are replaced by a slower, nature-oriented existence in Mauritius. Maduray admits that for some, the lack of manufactured entertainment can be a culture shock.

“It depends on what type of fun you are used to,” said Maduray. “For example, I could say for myself there was something like ice skating back home. Here in Mauritius on the island, there is none. So it is also what type of activities you are going to engage in.”

The trade-offs beneath the surface

Mauritius is a society where the past is visibly layered over the present. Once a stopping point on the Silk Road, the island was settled by successive waves of Dutch, French, and British colonisers, alongside enslaved Africans and indentured labourers from India. This history has created a dense, overlapping diversity where a church, a mosque, and a Hindu temple often stand within the same neighbourhood.

To the incoming digital nomad, this cultural density is often the first hurdle. Jolicoeur warns that the “melting pot” reality requires calibration for foreigners arriving from more homogenous societies. Jolicoeur herself has ethnic traces from East Africa and parts of Asia.

“If someone comes from a country where there is not much diversity, it will be a shock,” Jolicoeur said. “Understand that our cultural identity is very strong. We do not tolerate hatred against this or that religion.”

Beyond the challenge of cultural adjustment, Jolicoeur identifies three specific weights dragging on the island’s ambition: environmental decay, political stagnation, and rising insecurity.

The first crack is physical. The lagoons that sell the island to the world are deteriorating.

“The first issue is definitely environmental degradation,” Jolicoeur said. “We have lost a lot of coral, and the government has not been doing anything about it. People like to come to Mauritius because of the paradise, the beach, and the sea, and if it is not here, then what is the use?”

The second weight is political. While the country markets itself to young tech workers, its leadership remains a sickening gerontocracy that struggles to modernise, said Jolicoeur.

“It is always the same people in power,” Jolicoeur noted. “All of these men at the top of the state are old men, so they are not able to cater to the needs of the youth.”

The final trade-off is a spike in insecurity. A recent violent incident involving a foreign national from Cameroon triggered a wave of resentment.

“When this happened, you saw all of this on social media, Mauritian locals saying ‘deport him’ or ‘they are here taking our jobs,’” said Jolicoeur. “The event surfaced [opinions] that were silent in Mauritian society.”

Yet Jolicoeur agrees that despite rare incidents like that, the headlines are not wrong; Mauritius remains a relatively safe country for foreigners. But moments like that reveal the fragile balance the country is trying to maintain. It is a balance between economic openness and social harmony, and between its image as a haven and the unease simmering beneath the surface.

*Exchange rate as of January 10, 2026

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