Path to citizenship scores 7 out of 100: the law simply has no permanent residence.
The atmosphere is mild, the structure is harsh. We found no campaigns against legal foreign residents and no retroactive revocations, and in January 2026 the state even eased things: temporary stay was extended from one month to three, and property owners were freed from the deposit. There are no language or integration exams for residence.
Yet every status rests on the minister's consent. Under Article 19 of the residence law, the Interior Minister may refuse a permit, cancel one already issued and order departure without giving reasons, and the law provides no appeal. Refusal statistics are not published. The rules were tightened twice in 24 months: since 1 July 2025 the overstay fine has doubled to JOD 90 a month and a renewal can be filed no earlier than a month before expiry; since 1 October 2025 police registration is mandatory.
A worker is locked to the employer. The employer must report a dismissal to the authorities within 48 hours, and the law gives no grace period: leave the job and you lose your status, with arrest and deportation possible. People who entered after 25 February 2025 have no right to move to another employer. The regularisation drive of 15 June - 30 September 2026 offered a 50% discount on accrued fees to those who regularise and deportation to those whose permit had expired more than three months earlier.
The family depends entirely on the main applicant: the permit covers the wife and children listed in the passport, a child needs a permit of their own from age 16, and if the head of the family loses status, everyone does. A spouse needs their own work permit on general terms, within the same closed list. State schools take foreign children with conditions, and many attend private schools. Banks are conservative, and an account is hard to open before the iqama. The Aqaba special economic zone has its own regime, allowing up to 70% foreign workers.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
A visa can be bought on arrival for JOD 40, or a tourist visa obtained in advance through the Jordan Pass (JOD 70-80, valid for a month). Anyone staying longer than two weeks on a visa bought at the border must register with the police or pay a JOD 200 fine. To work, the same sponsor route as everyone else.
The Ministry of Labour treats these as unrestricted nationalities: residence is arranged without prior approval.
Residence is arranged only with prior approval from the Ministry of Labour.
The place interval 88-95 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 Path to citizenship: 7 against 57.1. Above the world average: 0 out of 7.
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.
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.
There are no official timelines or statistics: up to 60 days is stated for a work permit, in practice it depends on the sector and on complete documents, and the annual iqama adds a few more weeks.
Yes, with a bank deposit of JOD 20,000 (JOD 10,000 after two years) or through property, but that permit gives no right to work. You can work only on a permit through a sponsoring employer.
A work permit is JOD 300 for a non-Arab worker and JOD 2,500 for special qualifications, renewal JOD 150-175 a year, plus residence fees. About JOD 1,700 per adult over five years.
Yes, and easily: on dismissal the status ends at once, with no grace period. On top of that, the Interior Minister may cancel a permit and order departure without giving reasons.
The law has no permanent residence; after 10 years a 5-year permit is possible at the minister's discretion. Citizenship by residence is almost never granted in practice, the working path is investment from $750,000, and you must read and write Arabic.
There is no hostility: no campaigns against residents, and in 2026 the residence rules were even relaxed. But a foreigner has almost nowhere to work legally, cannot change employer, cannot settle for good, and their status depends at any moment on the minister's decision.
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.