Indian Passport Rank Falls to 125, Behind Namibia, Philippines and Uzbekistan
New Delhi: India was ranked 125th out of 197 countries in 2026, in the sixth edition of the Global Passport Index (GPI), falling one position from last year. In the first three consecutive years from 2021 to 2023, India ranked 127th and the ranking improved marginally last year to 124th.
Notably, Indian passport ranks below Namibia which is one spot above at 124. India is also behind Philippines, Morocco and Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan is one spot below India at 126 and Pakistan is near the bottom of the index at 188th.
The ranking is published by Global Citizen Solutions (GCS), a privately-owned global mobility consultancy and research organisation, which assesses the overall strength of a passport by considering factors such as global mobility, investment potential and quality of life.
Also read: The Indian Passport Cannot Be Reduced to Just a Travel Document
GCS uses 15 key indicators which are organised into the following three core pillars from which they derive their rankings:
- Enhanced Mobility Index (50%): Product of summation of weighted visa access, and global desirability based on quality of life in the country or territory to which the passport and the passport-holder’s citizenship belongs.
- Investment Index (25%): Considers global competitiveness of the country drawing from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, gross national income (GNI), and personal income tax rate.
- Quality of Life (25%): Considers sustainable development in the country or territory, cost of living and happiness index.
Indian passport holders need visa to enter around 88 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China and the United Arab Emirates.
The Indian passport is in news as officials at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) recently said that a passport is a travel document and not a citizenship document.
The Union government’s passport manual describes a passport as an identity and travel document that “provides evidence of the holder’s nationality” while also noting that the government may issue passports or travel documents to non-nationals in specified circumstances under Section 20 of the Act.
"A passport remains the state’s strongest and most authoritative official evidence that its holder has been recognised as an Indian citizen for international purposes," former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Qureshi and former Supreme Court judge Madan B. Lokur wrote in The Wire, commenting on the controversy.
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