Students: How to Make Your Trips Home Pay

In 2024-2025, France alone hosted 443,500 international students, according to Campus France. Many fly home once or twice a year, often with a half-empty suitcase. Those free kilos can cover part of the ticket: families, friends and strangers are waiting for something on exactly the same route as you.

Why students make ideal travelers

You often fly the same route, at the same times: Christmas, summer, religious holidays. Those are precisely the moments when demand peaks, between France and North Africa, West Africa or China, between Germany and Türkiye or India, between the UK and Nigeria, or between Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

The most requested items are often small: a phone, cosmetics, clothes, a spare part, a gift. They take little space, and the reward is negotiated per item, not only by weight.

How much it can pay

On Colia, the reward is negotiated: at least €5 per item, and at least 10% of the price for a product you buy on the spot. Two or three items on a trip often add up to a few tens of euros; a valuable purchase, such as a phone, can bring in over €100 on its own.

It is not a student job, it is extra income on a trip you are making anyway. Depending on where you live, this income may be taxable: look into it if you carry items regularly.

Four tips to get started

The rules to know

You are responsible for everything in your suitcase. No spare batteries in the hold, no medicines for someone else, nothing banned in the arrival country. And above the traveler allowance, or for an item that is not yours, use the goods-to-declare channel.

On Colia, contact details stay hidden until the deal is accepted, the conversation happens in the chat, and every delivery leads to reviews. With a verified profile and a few reviews, your next requests will come faster.