Visa Openness Index · updated 2026-07-12
The Most Welcoming Countries in 2026
By Cass · Data & rankingsWe classified all 39,402 passport-destination pairs (every one of 199 passports judged against the other 198) and ranked countries by how many of them they let in without paperwork arranged in advance. The winners are not the places travel brochures sell you. Twelve countries admit all 198; most of them are ones you have never been told to visit. Definitions are in the visa-data methodology.
The 25 most open countries
Twelve countries share first place, each opening its border to all 198 other passports. What separates them is the mechanism, not the outcome. Micronesia is the only one that does it purely visa-free — 198 stamps, no forms. Comoros routes all 198 through a visa on arrival; Kenya puts nearly everyone through an eTA. Ghana mixes 33 visa-free with 165 on arrival and still clears the whole board.
None of this is warmth. It is a policy choice about where the paperwork happens, and the countries that make the most generous choice are overwhelmingly small islands and African states that need the arrivals. “Welcoming” is a number, not a mood.
| Rank | Country | Visa-free | On arrival | eTA | Total open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burundi | 6 | 192 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Cape Verde | 61 | 137 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Comoros | 0 | 198 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Ghana | 33 | 165 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Guinea-Bissau | 14 | 184 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Ivory Coast | 23 | 0 | 175 | 198 |
| 1 | Kenya | 7 | 0 | 191 | 198 |
| 1 | Maldives | 4 | 194 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Micronesia | 198 | 0 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Samoa | 28 | 170 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Timor-Leste | 32 | 166 | 0 | 198 |
| 1 | Tuvalu | 31 | 167 | 0 | 198 |
| 13 | Bolivia | 52 | 145 | 0 | 197 |
| 13 | Cambodia | 8 | 189 | 0 | 197 |
| 13 | Djibouti | 1 | 196 | 0 | 197 |
| 13 | Mauritania | 8 | 189 | 0 | 197 |
| 13 | Seychelles | 197 | 0 | 0 | 197 |
| 18 | Dominica | 196 | 0 | 0 | 196 |
| 18 | Madagascar | 0 | 196 | 0 | 196 |
| 18 | Palau | 33 | 163 | 0 | 196 |
| 18 | Rwanda | 107 | 89 | 0 | 196 |
| 22 | Haiti | 193 | 0 | 0 | 193 |
| 22 | Sri Lanka | 2 | 191 | 0 | 193 |
| 24 | Mozambique | 37 | 155 | 0 | 192 |
| 25 | Macao | 85 | 106 | 0 | 191 |
One-way doors
Visa policy is not a handshake. The dataset holds 4,451 pairs where one country waves another’s citizens straight in but gets nothing back. Haiti runs the longest list: 179 passports enter Haiti visa-free that Haitians cannot enter in return. Palestine has 146 such doors, Micronesia 129, the Philippines 125.
The direction of the imbalance is worth naming. Japan admits United States passport holders visa-free while the reverse route requires a step. Angola opens its border to German citizens one-way. Qatar has exactly one unilateral visa-free door in the whole matrix, and it belongs to the United States. Rich passports collect these free entries; the countries handing them out rarely see the favour returned.
| Country | One-way doors |
|---|---|
| Haiti | 179 |
| Palestine | 146 |
| Micronesia | 129 |
| Philippines | 125 |
| Gambia | 117 |
| Ecuador | 110 |
| Dominica | 107 |
| Seychelles | 98 |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 88 |
| Vanuatu | 87 |
The passport paradox
Openness and passport strength are close to opposites. The countries that let everyone in tend to hold the weakest passports themselves. Burundi ranks first for openness and 175th for where its own citizens can go. Micronesia admits all 198 but its passport reaches only 106. Meanwhile the strongest passports belong to countries that keep their own borders comparatively tight.
The United Arab Emirates passport reaches 168 destinations, more than any other, yet the UAE itself sits 129th for openness. The United States passport opens 159 doors; the US admits just 46 passports in return, 166th on the welcome list. Singapore is the rare country that is both: a top-four passport with 165-destination reach and 164 inbound open doors of its own.
If you want to know what your passport actually does, the ranking below is the wrong tool. It measures who a country lets in, not where its citizens can go. Run your own document through the visa checker for that.
| Passport rank | Country | Destinations reachable | Own openness rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United Arab Emirates | 168 | 129 |
| 2 | South Korea | 166 | 61 |
| 2 | Spain | 166 | 86 |
| 4 | Denmark | 165 | 86 |
| 4 | Finland | 165 | 86 |
| 4 | France | 165 | 86 |
| 4 | Germany | 165 | 86 |
| 4 | Italy | 165 | 86 |
| 4 | Norway | 165 | 86 |
| 4 | Singapore | 165 | 35 |
How this is measured
The source is the open passport-index dataset, which records the entry requirement for every passport against every destination. After dropping the 199 self-pairs (a country against itself), that leaves 39,402 real pairs. We classify each one, then count, per destination, how many passports it admits without advance paperwork.
“Open” is the sum of three requirement types: visa-free, visa on arrival, and eTA. E-visas are excluded on purpose. An e-visa is an application you file and wait on before you fly, so it fails the test of boarding without doing paperwork first. The 34 e-visas Singapore issues, for instance, are not counted in its 164. The source refreshes on a monthly GitHub Action and this page rebuilds from it. The exact classification rules live on the visa-data methodology page.
One caveat the data itself forces: this measures policy, not experience. A visa on arrival still means a queue, a fee, and a border officer having a bad day. The ranking says who is allowed in, not who makes it pleasant.
Steal this data
The full 199-country table is downloadable, and you are welcome to take it.
The CSV carries every country’s welcome rank, visa-free / on-arrival / e-visa / eTA counts, total open doors, and passport rank, the same figures behind the three tables above. It is released under a CC-BY 4.0 licence: reuse it anywhere, just credit TravelMaxing and link back to this page so readers can find the methodology.
Prefer a live widget over a static file? Drop this snippet into any page and readers get a passport-rank lookup, no maintenance required on your end.
<iframe src="https://travelmaxing.app/embed/widgets/passport-rank"
width="100%" height="320" style="border:1px solid #e5e5e5;border-radius:8px"
loading="lazy" title="Passport rank checker"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:12px">Data: <a href="https://travelmaxing.app/most-welcoming-countries">Visa Openness Index — TravelMaxing</a></p>Frequently asked
Which country is the most welcoming in 2026?
Twelve countries tie for first place, each admitting all 198 other passports without a visa arranged in advance: Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Maldives, Micronesia, Samoa, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu. They get there by different routes. Micronesia stamps all 198 as fully visa-free; Comoros hands out 198 visas on arrival; Kenya runs nearly everyone through an eTA. Same result at the border, different paperwork on the way in.
What does 'open' or 'welcoming' mean in this ranking?
Open means you can board the plane without doing paperwork first: visa-free entry, visa on arrival, or an electronic travel authorization (eTA). We deliberately exclude e-visas, because an e-visa is an application you complete and wait on before you travel, which is not an open door. Singapore, for example, admits 164 passports with no advance step but issues e-visas to 34 more; only the 164 count here. Full rules are on the visa-data methodology page.
Does an open border mean my own passport gets in?
No, and the gap is large. A country can admit 198 others while its own citizens are turned away almost everywhere: Burundi ranks first for openness but its passport sits 175th for access. There are 4,451 one-way visa-free doors in the dataset, routes that work in exactly one direction. Check your specific passport against a destination in the visa checker before you assume reciprocity.
Where does this data come from and how often is it updated?
It is computed from the open passport-index dataset, which tracks the visa requirement for every passport against every destination. We classified all 39,402 passport-destination pairs (199 passports judged against the other 198). A GitHub Action refreshes the source monthly and the numbers here rebuild from it. The full ranking is downloadable as CSV under a CC-BY licence.
Openness is one input. Cost, weather, and the flight price decide the rest. If a wide-open border in the table sent you looking, the tourist maxxing approach is how you turn a shortlist into an actual trip.