In 2008, the Government of Ecuador initiated a programme for productive return dubbed the Cucayo Fund, aimed at financing small businesses for migrants who were returning to the country. This programme has been a cornerstone in the new governmental policy on migration. In 2015, the IOM considered it an exemplary practice among the instruments enabling the economic and social reinsertion of returning migrants. In this article, based on the mining and analysis of the implementation data from the Cucayo Fund in the three provinces comprising Administrative Region No 7, we specifically examine the incidence of human capital accumulated by the migrants in the success of their ventures. Our results show that the experience and knowledge attained by the migrants abroad, and transfer of these to new activities, play a key and relevant role in the financed ventures and that, therefore, human capital must be incorporated with greater emphasis into debates on return.