More than 8,000 Venezuelans left Chile voluntarily in 2026

A total of 8,243 Venezuelan citizens left Chile voluntarily between January and October 2026, according to the portal Banca y Negocios, citing a government tally from the administration of Chilean President José Antonio Kast.

Chile's undersecretary of the Interior, Máximo Pavez, said that 10,345 foreigners who had entered the country through unauthorized crossings departed voluntarily during the period. Of the total number of people who left the country without an expulsion order, most were Venezuelan citizens.

Meanwhile, the Chilean government has carried out the expulsion of 1,874 foreigners so far this year, following the departure of a charter flight with 56 deportees bound for Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. Authorities said this tenth flight reflects a frequency above the monthly average of the previous administration, under which a total of 1,117 foreigners were expelled during 2025.

Migration in Chile keeps more than 330,000 people in irregular status, according to data from the National Statistics Institute. Likewise, various reports point to the existence of tens of thousands of expulsion orders pending enforcement, nearly half of which concern Venezuelan citizens, in a context shaped by the legislative debate in Congress over a bill to make irregular migration a crime.