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.
On paper Albania is the most open country in our ranking. Permits are handled online, there are no mandatory integration courses or language tests for residence, and the language matters only for citizenship. A spouse may work straight away: the right is written into the family residence permit itself, with no separate authorisation. Family reunification has no fixed income figure, only proof that the family can support itself, and children attend state school free of charge.
The weak spot is transparency. The state does not publish how many applications it refuses, so the only way to judge how smoothly the procedure runs is through practitioners and consultants. The European Commission's annual report rates legal migration management as broadly satisfactory, but it gives no refusal rate either.
We found no pressure on foreigners living there legally. The Commission's report for March 2024 to July 2025 records no such events, there are no retroactive revocations, and the 2025-2026 changes all point towards easier rules: a provisional permit while your application is pending, automatic renewal, and 15 days after a visa expires to sort things out. One caveat: the foreign resident population is small, about 22,000 people, and 11,224 work permits were issued in 2024.
Your status survives a job loss. Unemployment is not a ground for cancelling the permit unless it lasts more than 3 months in any 12 (if you have worked in Albania for less than three years) or 6 months (if longer). Financial difficulty is not a ground for a self-employed person who can still cover living costs. But quitting a job voluntarily is a separate ground for cancellation, and an employee's permit is tied to the employer: a new employer means a new permit, though under a simplified procedure. You apply for renewal 60 days ahead, and the provisional permit fully replaces the old one.
Day to day, the friction is with banks: tourists rarely get an account, permit holders do, but in person, with paperwork and a language barrier. A local address (a lease or property) is needed for both the permit and the account.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
You may live in Albania for up to a year with no visa and no permit under a 2022 bilateral agreement, something no other country in our sample offers. A residence permit is issued without a D visa, and the first one can run for 5 years straight away.
Since the 2025 amendments they register online instead of applying for a residence permit; a first permit can also be issued for 5 years at once.
Short trips need no visa. According to the data gathered for our country card, the right to live in Albania without a residence permit has been extended to 30 March 2027. A long stay otherwise requires a D visa. Albania is not in the EU, so the EU's temporary protection decision does not apply here.
There is no visa-free entry: the summer visa waiver was cancelled by a government decision on 20 April 2023 and the restriction was then extended to the whole year; when we checked on 9 August 2026 it had not been restored. A visa is required, applied for via e-visa.al.
According to the Albanian Foreign Ministry's visa table for August 2026, ordinary passport holders need a visa, fee €100. Our country card listed a partially restored visa waiver, but the official table does not confirm it.
The place interval 1-4 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Pressure on newcomers: 100 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.2. The weakest is Path to citizenship: 63 against 57.1. Above the world average: 7 out of 7.
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.
All 97 states 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 route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
The law allows up to 12 weeks; in practice decisions come within 30-60 days. Since April 2026 you receive a provisional permit on the day you apply, which lets you live and work until the decision.
Yes. Remote workers for foreign clients use the digital mobile worker ground, and freelancers or business owners use self-employment. The procedure and portal are the same, and no local job offer is needed.
4,500 lek (≈€43) for a first permit and 2,250 lek (≈€21) for a renewal. This rate is confirmed for some categories; the single permit fee depends on its length, and we found no separate table.
Losing your job does not cancel the permit unless unemployment lasts more than 3 months in a year (6 months if you have worked in Albania for over three years). Quitting voluntarily or working outside the permit's terms can be grounds for cancellation.
Permanent residence after 5 years of legal residence, with a 60-day decision. Citizenship after 7 years while holding permanent residence, with a check of your Albanian and knowledge of history; you do not have to give up your previous citizenship.
Yes, in a calm and steady way: we found no pressure on legal foreign residents, the rules have only been eased in recent years, and families get nearly all rights at once. The downside is opacity: the state does not publish refusal statistics.
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.
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.
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.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
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.