Access 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.
Mauritius has one of the lowest entry bars in our sample: a salary from MUR 30,000 a month, a $50 fee, online applications and a free visa for remote workers. There are no campaigns against legal foreign residents, and Freedom House rated the country Free in 2025, 86 out of 100. No language tests or integration courses are needed for a permit, children go to free state schools, and a bank account opens in about a week once you hold a permit.
The weak spot is delivery. The agency publishes neither processing deadlines nor refusal statistics, and the real cycle is several times longer than the targets. Whether your status holds while a renewal is pending is not documented in public sources.
The main risk is that rules change for people already living under them. The 2025 Finance Act raised the residence requirement for permanent residence from three years to five, including for those who had planned on three, raised the retiree threshold from $18,000 to $24,000 a year, added a revenue requirement of MUR 1.5 million a year from year six for the self-employed and reviews for investors in year five. We found no transitional rules. The 2022 Immigration Act lets the minister strip a foreigner of resident status at his sole discretion in the public interest.
Status is tightly tied to the job. After dismissal you can file an undertaking within two weeks and get 6 months to find new work without leaving, but you cannot work meanwhile: a new job needs a fresh permit with a full set of documents and fees. Without the undertaking you must leave within a month. A spouse needs a permit of their own to work, and dependants may not work.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa needed to enter; the border officer sets the length of stay. The permit procedure is the same as for everyone.
For naturalisation they need 5 consecutive years of residence; others count 5 years within the last 7.
No visa needed to enter; the border officer sets the length of stay. The permit procedure is the same as for everyone.
No visa needed to enter; the border officer sets the length of stay. When we checked, we found no nationality restrictions on the main route.
A 60-day visa on arrival; visas in Mauritius are free of charge. When we checked, we found no nationality restrictions on the main route.
The place interval 15-21 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: 92 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 65.2. The weakest is Status security: 42 against 57.9. Above the world average: 6 out of 7.
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 is no official deadline; consultants cite 4-6 weeks, and in practice the full cycle takes 2-6 months. The Premium Visa for remote workers usually comes in 2-7 days.
Yes: the Self-Employed and Investor categories require at least $50,000 and a revenue plan, and the self-employed also need letters from local clients. Remote workers can use the free one-year Premium Visa, but it bans local work and does not lead to permanent residence.
A $50 application fee on any permit since 1 December 2025, plus a fee for the permit itself; we could not find the official tariff by category. The Premium Visa is free.
After dismissal you have 6 months to find new work if you file an undertaking within two weeks, but you cannot work in that period. The 2022 Act lets the minister revoke status at his discretion, and the 2025 rules were tightened for existing residents too.
Permanent residence after at least 5 years on a permit, with high income thresholds since 2025. Citizenship after 5 years of residence, with no exam but adequate English or French; the decision is discretionary, and dual citizenship is possible with permission.
Yes, calmly and openly: a low entry bar, a free society and no campaigns against newcomers. The risks lie in the rules, not the attitude: status is tied to the employer, the path to permanent residence got longer in 2025, and processing times are unpredictable.
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.