The non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) represents one of the most distinctive phenomena in non-Hermitian physics. Here, we uncover a new drag-induced NHSE mechanism in interacting Bose-Fermi mixtures where only bosons, but not fermions, experience asymmetric hopping. We show that strong Bose-Fermi interactions enable fermions to inherit boundary accumulation through correlated bound states. The interplay of interactions, quantum statistics, and non-Hermitian dynamics gives rise to an interaction-induced blockade mechanism, leading to highly asymmetric fermionic transport. We demonstrate that the drag-induced NHSE is dynamically stable and propose a feasible realization in ultracold Bose-Fermi mixtures with Floquet-engineered asymmetric tunneling. Our results establish a qualitatively distinct route to the NHSE, where non-Hermitian localization is not generated by direct nonreciprocal hopping of the localized particles themselves, but emerges through the interaction-mediated transfer of non-Hermitian dynamics between different quantum species. This mechanism further provides a potential route toward species-selective control of localization and transport in hybrid quantum matter.

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• Cold atoms & matter waves
• Cold gases in optical lattices
• Ultracold gases
• Atomic Properties
• Perturbative methods