The law explicitly requires a renewal with the same employer to be treated as a new application.
In words Ghana is welcoming: the Year of Return programme and a right of abode for people of African descent. But regulation shields the market from foreigners: expatriate quotas are tied to the employer's capital, retail and petty trading are reserved for citizens, and permits are issued for a year. There are no mandatory language or integration exams for status, and state schools are free and open to residents' children.
Delivery is unpredictable: the law binds the agency to no deadline, refusal statistics are not published, and your passport stays with the immigration service during processing, so you cannot travel. You can file a renewal no earlier than a month before expiry, and the right to work while it is processed is not guaranteed by law.
Pressure on residents is systematic and centred on trade. On 3 December 2025 more than 200 foreign-owned shops in Kumasi were closed without notice; the city assembly ordered all foreigners in retail to vacate their premises by 9 December 2025 and set up an enforcement committee with immigration, customs and police. In February 2026 the Ashanti region threatened a new wave. The traders say they broke no Ghanaian law.
Status is fragile. When a job ends, the employer must notify the immigration service within 7 days and arrange repatriation of the worker and dependants; the law gives no specific time to find new work. A spouse gets no right to work and must go through the whole procedure. Since November 2025 every bank transaction requires a Ghana Card, which a foreigner can get only after the residence permit. Anyone staying more than three months must register at an immigration office. Even indefinite residence is not for ever: more than 12 months in a row outside Ghana ends it, and it can only be restored through a new application.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
A visa is required: the US is not in the Ghana Immigration Service visa exemption table. Work and residence permits follow the standard procedure.
Enter without a visa on any passport, have a right of establishment in the region and pay lower permit fees.
Can obtain the Right of Abode: a lifelong right to live and work in Ghana regardless of an employer.
A spouse of a citizen gets indefinite residence after 2 years instead of 6. People with Ghanaian parents or a Ghanaian spouse pay reduced fees, for example $194 instead of $388 for a work permit.
A visa is required: Ukraine is not in the Ghana Immigration Service visa exemption table. Work and residence permits follow the standard procedure.
A visa is required: neither country is in the Ghana Immigration Service visa exemption table. We found no nationality restrictions on work or residence permits.
The place interval 80-91 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 Settling in: 62 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 69.5. The weakest is Agency processing: 37 against 48.7. Above the world average: 0 out of 7.
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.
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 sets no deadline. In practice 4-8 weeks, and your passport stays with the immigration service the whole time.
Not on an ordinary income: there is no nomad visa and no self-employment route. Without an employer, the investor route from $200,000 remains.
Under the fees in force from 2 March 2026 the work permit is $388 a year, the Ghana Card for foreigners $120 plus $60 per renewal, and the medical check $250 and $150 on renewal. We did not find an official tariff for the residence permit itself.
Yes. When a job ends the employer must arrange repatriation of the worker and family, there is no grace period, and each yearly renewal is treated as a new application. Indefinite residence is lost after more than 12 months in a row outside Ghana.
Indefinite residence after 6 years at the earliest: 12 months in a row before applying and at least 5 of the previous 7 years, decided by the minister. Citizenship after 6-7 years with one local language; dual citizenship is allowed.
Friendly in words, protective in practice: capital-based quotas, retail closed to foreigners, an annual permit with no processing deadline. In 2025-2026 foreign traders had their shops closed.
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.