Systems and methods for efficient migration for encrypted virtual machines (VMs) by active page copying are disclosed. An example method may include receiving a request to migrate a VM, identifying a first page of memory of the VM on the source host machine for migration, the first page of memory encrypted with a VM-specific encryption key, protecting the first page from access by the VM, executing a send command to modify the first page from encrypted with the guest-specific encryption key to encrypted with a migration key while the first page remains in place in the memory, allocating a second page in a buffer, copying contents of the first page to the second page, executing a receive command to modify the first page from encrypted with the migration key to encrypted with the guest-specific encryption key while the first page remains in place in the memory, and transmitting contents of the second page.