Returning home entrepreneurship （RHE） gradually becomes an emerging way of employment， which can advance rural revitalization and urbanization. Local government’s policy consists of one motivation of RHE. Previous studies paid limited attention to the underlying mechanisms of how policy mobilization influences RHE performance. Based on the empirical analysis of 968 RHE samples， it adopted the theoretical perspective of political connections to investigate the impact of policy-driven motivation on returnees’ entrepreneurial performance and its specific influencing mechanisms. The results show that policy-driven motivation has a positive effect on RHE performance. Policy-driven motivation helps RHE establish stronger political connections with local governments， which enable them to gain competitive resource advantages and organizational legitimacy， thereby enhancing performance. The positive effect of policy-driven motivation on RHE performance is stronger for RHE lacking managerial experience or those returning from geographically distant workplaces. These findings reveal that policy-driven factors are not merely an external institutional environment， but embed themselves into the process and outcomes of RHE via the channel of political connections， which provide empirical insights to support local governments in designing more targeted policy supports.