Not a ranking of the best countries, but a map of what breaks
How 97 states treat the people who move to them, judged by law and by what the authorities actually do, not by opinion polls. Every country carries a diagnosis line: the thing that gives way first.
The Index you are hereAnswers a different question: how the state will treat you once you have arrived
97states
26indicators
2,522scores with a source
every monthrecalculated, next one in September
Free and complete, no sign-up. Data as of 12.08.2026
Finding of the month
The world has learned to write good immigration law and has not learned to run it
We scored 97 states on 26 indicators across seven categories. The weakest category in the world is not open borders, and it is not the treatment of newcomers' families. The weakest category is Agency processing: whether the machine the state built for itself actually runs.
Its world average is 48.7 out of 100, the lowest of all seven. In 51 countries out of 97 it does not even reach half. For comparison, the average for Family rights is 72.2.
The practical meaning is simple. The main danger of moving is not being turned away. The main danger is being let in, but late, without explanation and with nobody to ask. This is where plans break, not at the border.
Spain, Portugal, Germany and Norway: 27 out of 100 each for agency processing
Exactly the same as Mexico, Armenia, Argentina and Costa Rica. The doors in southern and western Europe are wide open; the machine behind them moves slowly.
The United States: 91st of 97, and a zero for pressure on people living there legally
The only zero in this category in the whole index. The zero appears three times: for pressure events, for the cost of losing status, and for statuses revoked retroactively.
Kyrgyzstan: fourth in the world
Not because life there is good; we do not measure that. Because it scores 100 out of 100 for access to entry and 88 for status security: entry on an internal passport for citizens of the Eurasian Economic Union, work without a separate permit, family registration on the day you apply.
Before you look at the table
How to read this, and what you can skip
We measure one thing: how a state treats foreigners who have moved there or are about to. Not the climate, not prices, not safety, not how friendly the neighbours are. Only what the authorities decide: whether they let you in, how fast they process you, whether you can stay, what happens to your family, and how easily all of it can be taken away.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Who this score was calculated for
Every index has an applicant it is calculated for. Ours is set by the rules of the methodology, and here it is in full.
Who
Someone moving voluntarily: an employee, a specialist on a corporate transfer, a freelancer, a remote worker or an entrepreneur. Refugees and asylum seekers live in a different legal world, and we deliberately do not measure them.
Age
35. Where a route has age thresholds, they are counted from that mark: the German salary threshold for people first granted status at 45 or over, for instance, does not apply to the reference profile.
Income
Two levels, $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax. The lower one is the top of the budgets our readers name and the middle of the brackets in the quiz on this site. The upper one comes from a documented survey of people who have moved. The income score is the average of the two: a country open only to the upper level does not get full marks.
Passport
Not counted. The score is calculated for a citizenship-neutral applicant, otherwise there would be not 97 tables but 97 multiplied by the number of passports in the world. Restrictions and privileges tied to citizenship sit in a separate field on the country card.
Route
The most accessible of a state working routes for this profile. Not a golden visa and not an investor scheme, when an ordinary work door stands next to it.
Family
A spouse and children are covered by a separate category, Family rights: whether you can bring them, after how long, and whether the spouse may work. The tax burden, meanwhile, is calculated for a single filer, without family deductions.
Your profile is almost certainly different. That changes not the table but which of its lines apply to you: a different income changes how the entry category reads, a family changes how the family category reads, and your passport changes how everything reads. Running your own profile against all 97 countries is what a personal shortlist does.
What you can skip
Three things in this table carry no meaning, and we are the first to say so.
The exact place. We ran the data through 400 simulations with random noise. The average width of a place interval is almost 14 positions. «Australia is above New Zealand» is a statement about nothing.
A gap of one or two points. Of the 96 neighbouring pairs, 95 have overlapping intervals. If two countries have overlapping intervals, there is no difference between them.
Decimals. There are none and there will be none: with stepped scales that would be false precision.
What you can read: the league, which holds in 85 simulations out of 100, and the categories, which show what exactly is broken.
Thirteen countries between leagues
For these, the league holds in fewer than half the simulations, and rounding decides the outcome. Read them as sitting between two leagues, not as members of the upper one. On the edge of league A: Canada, Brazil, Taiwan. Between B and C: Slovakia, Norway, Spain, Greece, Czechia, Uzbekistan, Croatia, France. Between C and D: China, the Philippines. The other 84 countries hold their league steadily.
The red flag: a ceiling on the score
If one of the three core categories, agency processing, pressure or status security, falls below the critical mark, the country gets a flag and its total score is capped. The logic is simple: a disaster in the core is not cured by pleasant things around the edges. Good taxes do not make up for a residence permit revoked retroactively.
We do not throw such countries out of the table; we show them with a flag and a named reason. There are eight flags: the United States, Italy, Fiji, Latvia, Tunisia, the Bahamas, Egypt, Kuwait.
The flag is for what the state does, not for what we clarified. If an indicator dropped after we sharpened the definition of what it measures, there is no flag, and the country card carries a note explaining why.
Three countries with no place
A place in the table reads as a claim: this country has been checked and scored. Where the data is not enough for that claim, we do not make it. Bolivia, Cape Verde and Namibia got an open file instead of a score, setting out what is known, what is not, and what to check yourself.
Why the index covers 97 states and not all of them
The index covers not the whole world but the part of it people actually move to. A country is included if at least one of these is true: it is a developed receiving system (OECD, the EU and EEA, Switzerland, the United Kingdom); it runs a live visa it uses to attract newcomers; a lot of foreigners live there; our readers ask about it.
A country is left out if at least one of three things is true, and that outweighs any reason to include it: large-scale fighting is going on in its territory; there is no legal route for a voluntary move at all; the population is under roughly three hundred thousand.
Russia and Ukraine, for example, are both out under the first of those rules.
One hundred countries passed the selection. Ninety-seven of them got a place in the table: Bolivia, Cape Verde and Namibia passed the selection too, but the data on them was not enough to say the country has been checked and scored.
Four leagues
The league holds, the place drifts
The league is the unit you can trust: it stays the same in 85 simulations out of 100. A place inside a league moves with any noise in the data, so read the league and the categories, not the line number.
Forty-one countries out of 97 sit in league C. It is the most crowded part of the scale and the most deceptive: Germany, Portugal and Switzerland are in there too.
The seven bars in a row are the country's seven categories: their shape shows what is broken before you open anything. Click a row to see the category scores, the link to the close-up and the address of the row itself.
red flag: a core category below the critical mark, the score is cappedbetween leagues: the league holds in fewer than half the simulationsmedium confidence: more gaps or weaker sources than the rest
League A · They keep their word
80 points and above · 7 countries
Seven countries, and three of them, Taiwan, Canada and Brazil, hold league A in only one simulation out of ten. Reading the top seven as a list of the best countries in the world would be a mistake: next to each other stand Australia, the only country in the index where you may work for six months after losing your employer rather than just look for a job, and Kyrgyzstan, whose single strength is that it gets in the way neither of entering nor of staying. What they share is not prosperity but predictability.
placecountryscoreseven categoriesplace interval
1AAlbania85places 1-4Hardly ever pushes anyone out: 100 out of 100 for pressure on newcomers. But the state does not publish how many people it refused to let in.
6ACanada80places 4-10between leagues100 points for both path to citizenship and family. Only Armenia has the same combination. But the door is closing.
7ABrazil80places 4-10between leaguesOne of two countries with 100 out of 100 for status security: an appeal halts removal by an explicit provision of the law.
The longest part of the list, and it reads better by diagnosis line than from top to bottom: exactly one joint sags in each country, and it is a different joint every time. In the Netherlands the agencies score 100 out of 100, the maximum in the index, while an income threshold of 5,942 euro closes the door. Armenia is the opposite: citizenship and family rights at the maximum, and a four-month queue for an appointment at the migration service. Eight countries at the bottom of the league sit on the border with league C, among them Spain, France, Czechia and Greece.
placecountryscoreseven categoriesplace interval
8BJapan78places 6-15It opened the door, 90 points. But in 2025 it began revoking permanent residence over unpaid taxes and pension contributions, and that applies to people who already hold it.
10BBulgaria77places 6-15The EU Blue Card protects you here when you lose your job, because that is the main route. In Greece the same directive does not.
11BLuxembourg77places 6-15Status security scores 94, close to the maximum in the index. There is no visa for remote work, and access to entry drops to 56.
12BParaguay77places 8-16Not a single pressure event against newcomers, 100 out of 100. Yet residence takes longer than three months against the one to three promised, and agency processing collapses to 45.
13BRomania76places 8-16The law lets you leave an employer of your own accord only after six months of work, and the rule was extended to people already employed. Family rights here are 100 out of 100.
14BChile76places 9-16One of two countries with 100 out of 100 for status security. And 506 days of waiting for residence against the six months the law promises.
16BNetherlands74places 13-19Agency processing is 100 out of 100, the maximum in the index. And an income threshold of 5,942 euro a month before tax for an applicant over thirty, which drags access to entry down to 42.
17BIreland73places 14-21Since 2025 first registration happens only in Dublin, for the whole country, and appointments open in a ten-week window. Path to citizenship scores 90.
18BMauritius73places 15-21Access to entry scores 90, status security 42. Changing jobs means filing the whole permit package again, and in 2025 the residence requirement for permanent status went from three years to five, including for people who had planned around three.
19BBelgium71places 17-25Path to citizenship scores 90. But the law allows nine months for a family reunification decision, extendable twice by three, which makes fifteen.
20BSerbia70places 18-28The fifteen days the law promises for a decision are not kept, and the indicator for time against the promise stands at zero. Access to entry, meanwhile, is 90 and family rights 100.
21BUruguay70places 18-28Residence takes between one and two years to process, and the law sets no deadline for family reunification at all. Agency processing scores 28.
22BEstonia69places 18-30In March 2025 a constitutional amendment stripped local voting rights from around 78 thousand Russian and three thousand Belarusian residents, and pressure on newcomers fell to 48.
23BPeru69places 19-33Family rights are 100 out of 100. But there is no window to find new work: when the contract ends your stay stops being lawful, and you have thirty days to report it.
24BArmenia69places 20-33The queue for an appointment at the migration service runs about four months. And Armenia scores 100 for both path to citizenship and family rights: apart from it, only Canada does.
26BArgentina68places 20-36The law sets no deadline for deciding a residence application, and agency processing falls to 27. Argentina's path to citizenship is 100 out of 100.
27BFinland68places 20-35Stability of the rules stands at zero: four tightenings in two years with no protection for people already living there, including the wait for permanent status raised from four years to six.
28BMexico67places 22-39To bring your family the sponsor needs an income of around 4,432 dollars a month plus around 1,434 for each family member, several times the average local salary. Status security scores 94.
30BColombia66places 24-41A spouse's visa carries no right to work: to work, the spouse needs a visa of their own, through the same procedure as a stranger.
31BSlovakia66places 25-41between leaguesAccess to entry scores 84, agency processing 35: in spring 2025 there were almost no appointment slots in Bratislava, and some residents had their permits expire while they waited for one.
32BSpain66places 25-43between leaguesAn appointment at the agency takes three to six months: free slots are taken within seconds, and a resale market has grown up around them. Access to entry scores 91.
33BNorway66places 25-43between leaguesAn appointment at the Oslo police takes up to sixteen weeks, against the thirty days promised for the decision itself. Meanwhile there is not a single pressure event against newcomers, 100 out of 100.
34BGreece65places 26-43between leaguesYou cannot bring your family for the first two years: the law lets you apply for reunification only after two years of lawful residence.
35BUzbekistan65places 26-44between leaguesmedium confidenceA spouse has no right to work, neither on arrival nor after any period at all. Settling in scores 82, income tax is 7.5%.
36BCzechia65places 26-46between leaguesCitizenship comes about ten years after arrival. There are also documented cases of permanent residence revoked on classified national security grounds.
37BCroatia65places 27-44between leaguesA 2026 law allows you to bring your family only after two years of continuous residence, and a spouse may not work without a separate permit. Access to entry scores 87, family rights 50.
38BFrance65places 28-46between leaguesEvery new employment contract requires its own work authorisation, and you cannot bring your family until eighteen months of residence.
The most crowded league and the most surprising: Germany, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Denmark are here. A score in this league almost never refers to the country as a whole; it refers to the door you come through, and it changes with the door. Three countries carry a red flag: Italy, Latvia and Fiji. China and the Philippines sit on the border with league D.
placecountryscoreseven categoriesplace interval
39CMoldova64places 29-47Families move fast here: the law gives ten working days for a reunification decision. But you cannot change employer except by going through the whole procedure again.
40CEl Salvador64places 27-45The law requires at least 90 percent of a company's workforce to be citizens, and a newcomer's spouse cannot work. Path to citizenship scores 90.
41CDenmark63places 33-52Family rights are 100 out of 100 and path to citizenship is 27: eight years to permanent status as a baseline, nine to citizenship, all of it on top of a Danish exam at B2.
42CUnited Kingdom62places 35-52In 2025 the Home Office revoked 3,100 sponsor licences, a record for the whole observation period. The worker's permission is cut back along with the licence, though nothing about it depended on the worker.
44CSingapore62places 37-53Settling in scores 90, family rights 40. State school for a newcomer's child is paid: 1,035 Singapore dollars a month for primary and 2,190 for secondary, and a place is not guaranteed.
45CNorth Macedonia62places 36-53The residence permit is taken away at the very moment the employment contract ends. Pressure on newcomers, meanwhile, is 100 out of 100: not a single case.
47CPortugal62places 40-57The wait for citizenship was doubled from five years to ten, including for people already living in the country, and the years spent waiting for the card were not counted towards it at all.
48CSlovenia61places 39-57medium confidenceSince November 2024 renewing a family residence permit requires a passed Slovenian exam, and the rule caught people who already live there.
50CGermany60places 42-63Access to entry scores 90, agency processing 27. In Berlin, since 2025, you cannot book an appointment yourself: you file through a form and wait between two weeks and three months for the first reply.
53CAustria60places 45-63Changing employer in the first two years is only possible by obtaining the permit again, through the full cycle. The spouse does get a card with free access to the labour market.
55CKazakhstan59places 45-62The work permit belongs to the employer, not the worker: when the contract is terminated it is annulled, and the grounds for being in the country disappear.
57CTurkey59places 46-65The law has not changed, but residence permit renewals are refused more and more often: pressure on newcomers stands at 20 out of 100.
58CDominican Republic58places 51-67Amnesty International documents detentions during raids without document checks, and legal residents of Haitian origin are caught up in them.
59CGuatemala58places 51-67The law explicitly forbids an employer to have fewer than 90 percent Guatemalan workers, and the work permit is filed and held by the employer.
60CSouth Africa58places 50-67When you lose your job the rules give neither a grace period nor a period to leave, and a spouse cannot work. Path to citizenship scores 87.
61CSri Lanka58places 51-66medium confidenceThe only country in the index with a zero for path to citizenship: permanent status exists only for former citizens and their families, and for everyone else it does not exist.
62CBelize57places 51-67Family rights score 12 out of 100: a dependant permit is available only to someone aged 55 or over, a person with a disability or a child, so an adult spouse cannot be brought in on it.
63CMalta57places 54-68Working for anyone other than the employer named on the permit is explicitly forbidden, and those who miss the deadline after losing a job are deported.
64CPoland56places 54-69After losing your job you have thirty days to file a new application, and fifteen to notify the voivode, otherwise the permit is revoked.
66CLithuania56places 54-69A valid residence permit is revoked for travelling home too often: by January 2026, 149 people had lost their status this way.
67CUnited Arab Emirates56places 57-70Permanent status does not exist in the country: even a ten-year visa is annulled the moment the grounds for it disappear. Access to entry scores 90, path to citizenship 7.
68CCosta Rica55places 60-71The state has set no deadline at all for deciding an application, and after you lose your job there is not a single day of grace.
69CCyprus55places 59-71You can bring your family only after two years of residence, and permanent status is out of reach on the main route: permits are issued in a way that never adds up to five consecutive years.
70CSwitzerland52places 69-83Access to entry scores 18, the lowest of anyone: there is no visa for remote work, self-employment is closed to third-country nationals, and there is no shortage occupation list to make hiring easier.
71CIndonesia51places 67-82medium confidenceThe rules contain no mechanism for changing employer: when a contract ends the status is not transferred, it is obtained again from scratch.
72CMongolia51places 69-82medium confidenceResidence is granted for exactly the term of the work permit, and a newcomer can only be hired after a two-week check that no local could take the job.
75CItaly50places 72-77red flagAgency processing scores 10, the minimum in the index. Of the 127,707 quota places for 2023, 9,528 people reached an actual permit a year later, which is 7.5 percent.
76CLatvia50places 73-78red flagA 2022 law declared already issued permanent residence permits of Russian citizens invalid, and in autumn 2025, 841 people received a letter ordering them to leave.
77CFiji50places 74-79red flagmedium confidenceLawyers describe permanent status as a category unavailable in practice, though formally it exists. The rules give no grace period after losing a job either.
78CChina50places 71-86between leaguesmedium confidencePermanent status on the work route requires four years of employment and an income of at least six average regional salaries.
These are the countries most often recommended in conversations about moving: Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Georgia. A low place does not say life there is bad. It says the state is not building a future for a newcomer and, to its credit, usually does not hide it. Five countries in the league carry a red flag: the United States, the Bahamas, Egypt, Kuwait and Tunisia.
placecountryscoreseven categoriesplace interval
80DSaudi Arabia49places 72-86Permanent status here is not earned but bought: there is no other way to it in the country.
81DKenya49places 70-88The permit stops working the moment you are dismissed, automatically and without notice. And to hire a newcomer, the employer must name a Kenyan who will be trained as their replacement.
84DGeorgia48places 74-91People who have lived in the country for more than ten years are stopped from re-entering after a trip. Formally, nobody revokes their status.
86DTunisia47places 78-91red flagSince 2023 a state campaign has been running with collective expulsions to the Libyan and Algerian borders: pressure on newcomers scores 17, which is a red flag. An employment contract for a foreigner is renewed exactly once.
87DCambodia47places 78-91medium confidenceForeigners may not exceed ten percent of a company's staff, and the work permit is issued within that quota, for a named employer.
96DEgypt38places 95-96red flagmedium confidenceA red flag for status security, 19 points, against the background of a raid campaign running since the end of 2025.
That country is not in the index. We cover 97 states; yours may be one of the three open files with no place: Bolivia, Cape Verde, Namibia.
Where the index stops answering
This ranking was calculated without your passport
Albania scores 85 and takes first place. But for a Russian citizen its famous visa-free regime does not exist: it was cancelled in 2023 and never restored. For a United States citizen the same country gives 365 days of stay with no permit at all, which exists nowhere else in the sample.
One country, one score, three completely different lives. The index is calculated for a citizenship-neutral applicant, otherwise there would be not 97 tables but 97 multiplied by the number of passports in the world. For you, everything starts with your passport.
A personal shortlist. Your passport, income and family run against every country we cover: the visa routes you actually qualify for, your household budget, three reasons not to go for each country and a checklist for the first 90 days. PDF within 24 hours.
Twenty countries are taken apart in full: what works, what is broken and what proves it. They are not favourites or outsiders picked by taste but both edges of the scale, because the machinery is visible at the edges and blurred in the middle. The other 77 sit in the table above with a diagnosis line.
At the top: ten states that behave predictably
Wealth has nothing to do with it. Australia, Canada and Japan stand next to Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Ecuador and Bulgaria. They have one thing in common: the rules are written, they are followed, and they do not change retroactively.
place 1 of 97
Albania
League A · They keep their word
85out of 100 places 1-4
Hardly ever pushes anyone out: 100 out of 100 for pressure on newcomers. But the state does not publish how many people it refused to let in.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Albania
The European Commission report for the period found no case of pressure on legal residents: management of legal migration was rated «broadly satisfactory». Law No 79/2021 says it plainly: unemployment is not grounds to annul a permit until it exceeds three months in a year (six, if the person has lived in the country for more than three years), and financial difficulty is not grounds for a self-employed person. The single Leje Unike permit is issued online through the e-Albania portal, and since April 2026 the temporary permit is issued on the day you apply and stays valid while the case is decided. A self-employed person pays 0% income tax until turnover passes 14 million lek; the relief runs to the end of 2029.
DownsideThe state does not publish refusal statistics. Under our rule the refusal rate indicator scores 25 out of 100 for that, and it drags agency processing down.
About first placeIt cannot be read as sole leadership. Australia has the same place interval, and the intervals of New Zealand and Kyrgyzstan overlap it. The difference between first and fourth place is not significant in our data, and we are the ones saying so.
Agency processing75
Pressure on newcomers100
Status security88
Access to entry90
Path to citizenship63
Family rights92
Settling in82
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The only country of the 97 where, after losing your job, you may work for six months rather than merely look for work.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Australia
180 consecutive days after losing your sponsor and up to 365 days in total. During that time you may work for other employers or for yourself. Nowhere else in the index does income survive that moment: everywhere else you may look for work but not work. Beyond that, the country simply stays out of your way: a bank account opens online before you even arrive, there is no compulsory address registration and no integration exams. Path to citizenship is scored at 100 out of 100.
DownsideAccess to entry scores 59. There is no visa for remote work or for the self-employed at all; you get in only through an employer, through points or through study. The salary threshold for the main work visa is A$79,423 a year from 1 July 2026, and an applicant on $2,500 a month does not clear it.
A warningIn January 2026 a new law added grounds for cancelling visas that are already in force.
Agency processing92
Pressure on newcomers87
Status security81
Access to entry59
Path to citizenship100
Family rights88
Settling in80
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
100 out of 100 for agency processing, and only 25 for the grace period after you lose your job.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is New Zealand
One of two countries in the index with the maximum on this criterion; the other is the Netherlands. The agency works the way it promises to. Children of work visa holders attend state schools alongside locals and free of charge, an account opens on a passport, there is no address registration, and path to citizenship scores 100.
DownsideThere is no grace period after dismissal. The visa is not annulled automatically, but you cannot work until a change of employer is approved, and since November 2025 the immigration service may put an application on hold if it has questions about the new employer. There is no visa for remote work: since January 2025 newcomers have been officially allowed to work for a foreign client for up to 90 days, but that grants no local rights.
Agency processing100
Pressure on newcomers92
Status security56
Access to entry70
Path to citizenship100
Family rights88
Settling in80
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
100 out of 100 for access to entry, the maximum in the index. Only Taiwan matches it.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Kyrgyzstan
For citizens of the Eurasian Economic Union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia) entry is on an internal passport and work under an employment contract needs no separate permit. For everyone else there is a Digital Nomad status. Family members are registered on the day they apply, state schools are free, studying in Russian is widely available, and income tax is 10%.
In April 2026 the Cabinet of Ministers almost doubled the quota for hiring foreign workers, from 52,000 to 100,000, citing a shortage of qualified staff. It is a rare case of a country not merely letting people in but calling them.
DownsideSince 31 December 2025 there is a limit on staying without status, 90 days out of 180, and it applies to everyone, including citizens of the union. The old regime, with six-month registration and unlimited extension, is over. A bank account can be opened, but under sanctions pressure the banks are cautious.
Agency processing75
Pressure on newcomers70
Status security88
Access to entry100
Path to citizenship90
Family rights88
Settling in78
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The result is calculated for one entry route. Take another one and you get a different country.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Taiwan
100 out of 100 for access to entry, 90 for settling in, income tax of 7.6% on $2,500 a month, and a diploma accepted without extra recognition.
But we score the ordinary resident work card, and on that one the tie to the employer is real: a new employer obtains a new labour ministry permit, then a new card is filed for and the old one is annulled. A spouse gets a dependant card, but the right to work does not come with it; a separate permit is needed.
Downside50 out of 100 for statuses revoked retroactively. Since 2025 at least five cases have been documented of spouses from mainland China losing legal status over things they said.
NoteTaiwan sits exactly on the border of leagues A and B, and should be read as a country between two leagues.
Agency processing67
Pressure on newcomers62
Status security88
Access to entry100
Path to citizenship80
Family rights88
Settling in90
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
100 points for both path to citizenship and family. Only Armenia has the same combination. But the door is closing.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Canada
Express Entry leads straight to permanent residence, skipping the intermediate work visa, and few places are built that way. The right to a bank account is written into law, school is free, there are no integration exams, and language courses are free and voluntary.
DownsideAccess to entry scores 56, and it is falling. Work permit issuance is down 37% for 2026 and study permits down 49%, with a moratorium on low-paid streams. Twice in 24 months the rules changed retroactively: in March 2025 bonus points for a job offer were removed, including for people who had already filed a profile, and in March 2026 law C-12 came into force, giving the cabinet the power to cancel and suspend applications.
Agency processing75
Pressure on newcomers78
Status security81
Access to entry56
Path to citizenship100
Family rights100
Settling in80
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
One of two countries with 100 out of 100 for status security: an appeal halts removal by an explicit provision of the law.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Brazil
The other such country is Chile. You get at least 60 days, extendable, to put your status in order, freedom of movement is preserved meanwhile, and the law explicitly forbids detention on migration grounds. A spouse works immediately and on equal terms with Brazilians, without a separate permit, and that extends to the family of someone on a remote work visa. Education is a right of everyone under the Constitution, regardless of migration status.
DownsideAgency processing scores 53, settling in 62. Delays in issuing the registration number block both the bank account and payroll; diploma recognition goes through state universities and takes months; income on a remote work visa is taxed at around 24%.
Agency processing53
Pressure on newcomers92
Status security100
Access to entry80
Path to citizenship87
Family rights92
Settling in62
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
It opened the door, 90 points. But in 2025 it began revoking permanent residence over unpaid taxes and pension contributions, and that applies to people who already hold it.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Japan
Since 2023, people who qualify by income or by degree no longer need to collect points. Family reunification takes the one to three months the law promises, the immigration service accepts a bachelor's degree itself with no separate recognition procedure, and ten years of experience can replace it. There are no integration exams.
DownsideA spouse on a dependant visa cannot work straight away; a separate permit is needed, and even with it the ceiling is 28 hours a week. Only spouses of highly qualified specialists have a full right to work.
Stability of the rules scores just 25 out of 100. An immigration service instruction of 29 September 2025 takes effect in 2027 and introduces revocation of permanent residence over unpaid taxes and mandatory pension and health contributions. It contains no protection for people who already hold it, and that is around 918 thousand people.
Agency processing67
Pressure on newcomers78
Status security75
Access to entry90
Path to citizenship80
Family rights88
Settling in72
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The professional visa threshold is $482 a month, one of the lowest in the world, and it leads to permanent status.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Ecuador
You need a diploma registered with SENESCYT, the state body that recognises education, and an income of one minimum salary, around $482 a month. Path to citizenship is 100 out of 100: permanent status here is reached quickly rather than existing on paper. The family applies through the same process, with a benchmark of about 60 days, access to education does not depend on migration status, and there is no compulsory address registration.
DownsideThe migration law reform of October 2025 introduced a rule that two years of absence from the country costs you permanent status, with no appeal. The rule applies to people who obtained status earlier too. A family member's visa grants residence but not the right to work: an adult dependant has to obtain a permit separately or change category.
Agency processing67
Pressure on newcomers62
Status security88
Access to entry80
Path to citizenship100
Family rights88
Settling in70
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The EU Blue Card protects you here when you lose your job, because that is the main route. In Greece the same directive does not.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Bulgaria
This is the clearest example of how the whole index works: it is not about the country, it is about the route you enter by. The same European directive gives protection when you lose your job: three months, six with longer service. In Bulgaria the Blue Card is the main route, and the indicator scores 100. In Greece the main route is a different one, an ordinary permit with no such rule at all, and the score there is 50.
The Bulgarian Blue Card threshold is noticeably lower than the western European one, IT roles can be entered on experience without a degree, income tax is 10%, and there is no separate financial threshold for family reunification: the card holder's salary covers it.
DownsidePath to citizenship scores 63. Citizenship is possible only five years after obtaining permanent status, that is, roughly ten years after arrival, and citizens of non-EU countries are usually required to renounce their previous citizenship.
Agency processing53
Pressure on newcomers100
Status security88
Access to entry87
Path to citizenship63
Family rights80
Settling in72
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
At the bottom: ten states that are not building you a future
This is not a list of poor countries either: the United States and Israel are here. Four of the ten carry a red flag, which means a core category below the critical mark and a score held down by the cap.
place 88 of 97
Ghana
League D · You are a guest here
47out of 100 places 80-91
The law explicitly requires a renewal with the same employer to be treated as a new application.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Ghana
Immigration Act 573, section 23(2): even an annual renewal with the very same employer is treated as a new application. Stable status does not exist here by the design of the law itself. There is no grace period after dismissal: the law obliges the employer to carry out the director's instruction to repatriate the worker and their dependants. Dependants receive residence, but entering the labour market on it is not allowed, and the wording in the law is explicit. How many foreigners a company may hire depends on the volume of the employer's foreign capital: that is a restriction on hiring, not a way to attract people.
PressureOn 3 December 2025, more than 200 foreign-owned shops in Kumasi were closed without warning.
Agency processing37
Pressure on newcomers48
Status security38
Access to entry42
Path to citizenship53
Family rights60
Settling in62
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
Permanent status is closed to an ordinary newcomer, and so is citizenship. Path to citizenship scores 20 out of 100.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Vietnam
Permanent residence is granted for services to Vietnam, to an academic with ministry sponsorship, or through kinship with a citizen. For an ordinary specialist there is no road. Citizenship is formally possible after five years, but the clock runs from permanent residence, which is closed, and renunciation of the previous citizenship is required.
When a contract is terminated the work permit is annulled, the employer is obliged to withdraw the residence card and return it to the migration service, and an exit visa of about 15 days is issued instead. There is no right to stay and look for work. Changing employer means a new permit through the full cycle. There is no visa for remote work and none has been announced: in practice remote workers live on 90-day e-visas and leave to get a new one, but working on them is not allowed.
Agency processing45
Pressure on newcomers45
Status security38
Access to entry49
Path to citizenship20
Family rights62
Settling in62
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
90 out of 100 for settling in and 8 out of 100 for status security. The absence of taxes does not cure that.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Bahamas
The red flag is for status security, 8 points. The work permit is personal and annual, and it is issued after the employer has advertised the vacancy in a newspaper for three days running. The tie to the employer scores zero, the grace period zero.
Separately, about a programme relocation guides still advertise: the BEATS visa for remote work has not existed since February 2022. It is not in the immigration department's list of categories, nor in the official fee schedule, and there is no application portal for it.
Permanent status takes 20 years of continuous legal residence, citizenship around 16 years, and the decision is theirs to make. There is no income tax, no diploma is needed at all, and there are no integration exams. Daily life is beautifully arranged; no future is provided for.
Agency processing37
Pressure on newcomers62
Status security8
Access to entry49
Path to citizenship33
Family rights48
Settling in90
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
Zero out of a hundred for pressure on newcomers. The only such zero in the index.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is United States
The zero appears three times: for pressure events, for the cost of losing status, and for statuses revoked retroactively. In spring 2025 more than 4,700 records were annulled without notice in the system that tracks legal students, parole already in force was cancelled, and temporary protected status was ended early for hundreds of thousands of people.
There is no grace period to find a new employer, and only a court may allow you to leave voluntarily, at its own discretion. The immigration service's own target is two months; the actual time as of July 2026 is nine to ten and a half months, five times longer than promised. Access to entry scores 24: a sponsored work visa remains the only route at scale, and since February 2026 the lottery has been weighted by salary level.
UpsideFamily scores 88, and a bank account is opened on a passport, without a social security number.
Agency processing43
Pressure on newcomers0
Status security56
Access to entry24
Path to citizenship40
Family rights88
Settling in82
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The entry threshold is $25,000 a year, you cannot change employer, and permanent status does not exist.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is India
The work visa requires a salary of at least $25,000 a year, is tied to a named employer and a named position, and the employer has to explain why an Indian citizen was not hired for the job. Changing employer during the visa term is generally forbidden. There is one exception: a move between a holding company and a subsidiary with prior approval from the Ministry of Home Affairs. In every other case you have to leave and obtain a new visa abroad.
There is no permanent status for an ordinary specialist: the visa is extended for up to five years, no rights accumulate along the way, and the investor status effectively does not work. Citizenship takes 12 years of residence and mandatory renunciation of the previous citizenship; dual citizenship is strictly forbidden. A spouse on a dependant visa may not engage in any economic activity at all.
Agency processing45
Pressure on newcomers32
Status security31
Access to entry40
Path to citizenship33
Family rights62
Settling in72
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
Path to citizenship scores 7 out of 100: the law simply has no permanent residence.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Jordan
Law 24/1973 does not know permanent residence. The most it provides is that, after ten years of lawful residence, the minister may issue a five-year renewable residence permit. That is a renewable status, not a permanent one, and the decision is theirs to make.
The law gives no grace period after dismissal at all: the employer must notify the authorities within 48 hours and the status ends. You can change employer only with their permission, and anyone who resigns loses their legal standing. The GLOBALCIT report describes citizenship with the formula «many options in the law, few in practice».
UpsideThe employment route has no income threshold, the employer sponsors you, and the family is processed together with the sponsor: the main applicant's permit covers spouse and children at the same time.
Agency processing45
Pressure on newcomers53
Status security31
Access to entry49
Path to citizenship7
Family rights52
Settling in62
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
Access 80, family 28, path to citizenship 20. It takes you in for a long time, but not for good and not with your family.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Thailand
The widest entry in the whole bottom ten, and the widest gap between entry and everything else. The work permit is issued for a named employer and a named workplace; when you change, the procedure is repeated in full, including a check on the new employer: 2 million baht of capital and four Thais per foreigner. A spouse's right to work scores zero.
Citizenship is possible no earlier than five years after holding permanent status, that is, more than ten years after arrival, and at every step there is a quota and discretion. Pressure on newcomers scores 23.
UpsideUnder Thai labour law wages must be paid into a Thai account, so a work visa together with a work permit is the profile banks in the country accept most readily.
Agency processing37
Pressure on newcomers23
Status security44
Access to entry80
Path to citizenship20
Family rights28
Settling in72
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
A work licence is not extended beyond 63 months from the day of first arrival. After that, you leave.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Israel
The main route is the «foreign expert» visa, with a salary of at least twice the national average: 27,132 shekels a month before tax from January 2026. The procedure contains an explicit limit: the licence is not extended beyond 63 months from the day of first arrival. The length of your life in the country is set in advance.
There is no path to permanent status for someone who is not repatriating. Citizenship requires the right to live in the country permanently, and a foreign expert never acquires that right. You may work only for the employer who filed the hiring application; there is no simplified transfer between employers. Family members cannot work: a spouse receives a tourist visa. An exception is made for spouses of specialists in high technology, but that is a separate privileged category.
Agency processing35
Pressure on newcomers32
Status security25
Access to entry31
Path to citizenship20
Family rights75
Settling in80
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
League D · You are a guest herered flagmedium confidence
38out of 100 places 95-96
A red flag for status security, 19 points, against the background of a raid campaign running since the end of 2025.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Egypt
Since the end of 2025 a campaign has been running in the country: plain-clothes raids on streets and workplaces targeting Syrians, Sudanese, South Sudanese and people from countries south of the Sahara. The UN refugee agency estimates at least 3,000 arrests in two months. This is not a story about people without papers: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the expulsion of people whose documents were valid.
A work permit is issued for a named employer and only if no suitable Egyptian was found, and within a quota; changing employer means the whole process again. Permanent status does not exist; the most on offer is a five-year renewable card for $200,000 invested in property. A spouse has no right to work, neither on arrival nor after any period.
UpsideThere is no income threshold on any route: you get in either with capital or through an employer.
Agency processing37
Pressure on newcomers25
Status security19
Access to entry49
Path to citizenship27
Family rights55
Settling in62
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
Status security 6 out of 100, path to citizenship 7, family 15. The worst result in the index.
Each tick is a country, all 97 on one scale. The bands are leagues, the bold tick is Kuwait
There is no permanent residence, and the new law went the other way, capping work residence at five years. For the first three years you can move to another employer only with their consent and for a separate fee. From 1 July 2025 the exit permit was reinstated for the entire private sector: you can leave the country only with your employer's knowledge.
Decree 114/2024, whose regulation has been in force since 23 December 2025, gives no grace period at all once a residence permit has expired. That is what collapsed the renewal waiting indicator from 100 to zero and earned the country a red flag.
UpsideThere is no income tax.
Agency processing37
Pressure on newcomers48
Status security6
Access to entry42
Path to citizenship7
Family rights15
Settling in72
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
Taiwan scores 100 out of 100 on the cost of losing status. That is the Employment Gold Card. On an ordinary work permit you get 10 days to leave after it is revoked. One passport, two routes, a different price for the same mistake.
Bulgaria and Greece live under the same European directive. In Bulgaria it protects you when you lose your job, because that is the main route, and the score there is 100. In Greece the main route is a different one, and the score is 50.
We score each country on its main route. Yours may be another one, and then the whole picture changes.
Personal research. Your shortlist read through your situation: family, income structure, timing, appetite for risk. Verdicts side by side for every country on your list, and a recommended visa route with the order of steps.
Shortly before the issue we adopted three rules and ran them across all one hundred country files. Two of them pushed scores down for most countries, and we adopted them anyway.
1Silence stopped being free
Ten states out of a hundred publish their refusal rates. The rest used to get a dash for no data. Now not publishing is a fact about the state rather than a gap in our data: the newcomer has to live with that opacity, and it costs 25 points. The indicator was converted for 89 countries, and the total score fell for 76 countries out of 96, all of them downwards. An honest no data remains exactly where the statistics are published but we could not obtain them: the only such case in the whole sample is Lithuania.
A caveat. A score of 25 means opacity, not a lot of refusals. There may be very few; we simply cannot verify it, and neither can you.
2The tax break you cannot use
The indicator used to record whether a country had a special regime for newcomers. Now it measures the real tax burden on two reference income profiles. It changed for 27 countries. In eleven of them a high score rested on relief for foreign income, the kind a person on a local salary cannot use.
A caveat. Mandatory employee social contributions are not counted. Because of that, continental European taxes look softer in the index than they feel on a payslip.
3No score goes out on the word of a content farm
We found 32 indicators resting on a single source with signs of machine generation and rechecked every one against official sources. 24 held up. One turned out to be a lie, and it is the only case where a source lied outright: the score for Kyrgyzstan had to be raised from 20 to 100. Seven facts could not be confirmed, so we withdrew them into no data, and the scores of three countries went up as a result. That is the price of honesty, not an improvement in their position.
Where that left the table
The index became an index of 97 countries: Uzbekistan came back into the ranking, because the rule on non-publication closed the very gap that had kept it out. Three countries, Bolivia, Cape Verde and Namibia, were left with no place. The number of red flags rose to eight: the last went to Kuwait, when it turned out that decree 114/2024 gives no grace period after a residence permit expires.
Watchlist
What we are watching before the September issue
Here we name an event and announce the threshold in advance: what exactly has to happen for a score to move, and by how much. The threshold is announced before the outcome and is never rewritten afterwards. If nothing has moved in a month, we will come back and say why it did not.
Candidates to drop out of league A
Canada, Brazil and Taiwan sit exactly on the 80-point edge and hold league A in one simulation out of ten. Canada has a known direction of travel: work permit issuance is down 37% year on year, and if the fall continues the entry category will pull the score down.
ThresholdA change of league is an event we will write about separately. A change of place inside a league is not, and we will not write about it.
Spain: the announced tightening on rentals for non-residents
This is the Settling in category, weighted at 12%. Spain currently sits between leagues B and C, so a move down changes its league, and that will be an event.
ThresholdThe score moves by two points only if a law is actually passed, not if a minister announces one.
Kuwait: exit permits
From 1 July 2025 the exit permit was reinstated for the entire private sector.
ThresholdRepealing or narrowing that rule lifts the status security category; keeping it leaves the country in last place. We are watching both outcomes equally.
How long renewals really take: an open question to you
We publish this indicator with the deadline the law promises. What happens in practice is known only to the people who have been through it. Tell us how long you waited and in which country: in a month we will compare what the law promises with what actually happens and show the gap.
This is a snapshot of August, and you are deciding for five years
Qatar cut the window after dismissal from 30 days to 14 this summer. Bulgaria tied the right of residence to the date of the employment contract in 2025, with no window at all. From 2027 Japan will start revoking permanent residence over unpaid contributions, affecting 918 thousand people who already hold it.
The index catches changes like these within a month. But there is a question it does not answer: where a country is heading, rather than where it stands today.
Deep Dive. Trend lines instead of a snapshot. Legal and conflict risks for foreign residents five years out. The five-year trajectory: arrive, settle, become a local, or leave.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
All scores are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible of the live routes. The full profile is above, in the section on how to read this.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
The categories are not equal in weight: the weights come from a frequency analysis of the complaints and discussions of people who actually move, ordered by what hurts most often. The core, that is agency processing, pressure and status security, carries about half the weight. Recalculated with other weighting schemes, the top group of countries does not change.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.
