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Surveying international migrants is a complex endeavour with various pitfalls. It is challenging to survey emigrants and remigrants from one country of origin. Emigrants are more difficult to sample than the resident population because they are more spatially dispersed. Moreover, emigrants and remigrants are more difficult to survey than the non-migrated resident population because migrants are likely to be mobile again (Di Pietro 2012; Oosterbeek and Webbink 2011; Kodrzycki 2001). The difficulty is even greater in panel surveys because they have to deal with ongoing migration. The approach we followed in the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) is an immediate response to these methodological issues. GERPS realises a probability sample of German emigrants and remigrants by exploiting public register information in the country of origin. The study surveys emigrants and remigrants shortly after migration and follows them over a minimum period of 2 years. It provides us with the opportunity to analyse consequences of international migration from at least two perspectives–shortly after emigration to destination countries and shortly after return to the country of origin. This research design makes GERPS a panel with globally highly dispersed sample members (see Ette et al. 2021 in this volume), suggesting an online survey as the most appropriate survey mode for controlling survey costs and ensuring participant contact. Due to the register-based sampling frame, however, we were only able to recruit participants via postal invitation. We therefore realised a “recruit-and-switch” design