Securing foreign employment involves numerous costs mainly to the migrant worker and to a lesser extent to other stakeholders such as employers, recruitment agents and the sending and receiving governments. The cost of migration is distributed across many stakeholders across the three phases of migration – pre-migration, migration and post-migration. This study aims to provide a methodological framework for conceptualizing a more holistic, end-to-end migration process of low-skilled workers from Sri Lanka, by mapping a value chain of labour migration costs.