Methodology
What makes one passport stronger than another.
A passport is a mobility instrument. Its power is the sum of the doors it opens without paperwork. We score 199 passports against 227 destinations and rank them by the number they can reach without applying for a visa in advance.
Access categories
- Visa-free
- No visa required before departure. Entry is granted on arrival with the passport alone, usually for a fixed number of days.
- Visa on arrival
- A visa is issued at the border on payment of a fee. No advance application, but entry is at the officer's discretion.
- Electronic travel authorisation
- An online authorisation must be approved before boarding. Fast, but it is a pre-clearance step, not visa-free travel.
- Visa required
- A visa must be obtained from a consulate or embassy in advance, typically with documentation and an interview.
Ranking rules
Global rank is taken directly from the published 2026 passport index, which scores every passport against all 227 destinations; passports on the same published score share a rank. Regional rank re-ranks those same standings inside each region, which is often the more useful number: it tells you how a passport compares with its neighbours. Rank trajectory uses the real published standings for 2024, 2025 and 2026. The headline visa-free, visa-on-arrival, eTA and visa-required counts are the published index figures; the individual country lists come from the live visa-rule feed, refreshed monthly, which covers the indexed countries only.
Mobility score
The mobility score normalises total access to a 0–100 scale against the strongest passport in the index. It makes small differences legible: two passports separated by fifteen ranking places may differ by only a couple of points.
Year-over-year movement
Movement compares the 2026 position with the previous edition. Ranks shift for two reasons: a passport gains or loses agreements, or the passports around it move. Both are shown — the rank delta and the change in destinations.
Limits of the data
Visa policy changes weekly and often applies asymmetrically, by residence, purpose of travel or onward ticket. This index is an editorial reference for comparing relative strength, not a substitute for official guidance. Confirm requirements with the destination's embassy before you book.