NOORDWESTER – LICHTENBURG - The South African passport is the 100th most powerful passport in the world – a middling placement that comes across as weaker, due to severely limited visa-free travel, poor global perception and limited personal freedom.
This is according to Nomad Capitalist, a tax and immigration consultancy, as per its Nomad Passport Index 2025. Unlike other passport ranking metrics, Nomad Capitalist analyses five important aspects of passport strength:
# Visa-free travel (50%)
# Taxation (20%)
# Global perception (10%)
# Ability to hold dual citizenship (10%) and
#Personal freedom (10%)
South Africa ranking:
South Africa ranked 100th in the ranking with a total score of 68.50 – far behind Ireland’s 109.
For the visa-free travel section (which accounts for 50% of the score), South Africans can travel to 111 countries without a visa on arrival, or via an eTA. This is well below Ireland’s 176, or even Ukraine’s 149.
When looking at taxation (20%), Nomad Capitalist relies on data from its network of tax vendors, news sources, and tax authorities themselves. It assigned the lowest score of 10 to countries that tax citizens no matter where they are, all the way to countries with zero tax at a score of 50.
South Africa received a taxation score of 20, meaning that South Africa allows citizens to relocate to avoid tax.
For freedom (10%), the consultancy used data and news reports on military service, government surveillance, press freedom, and other factors to determine the personal freedom of citizens, travellers and expats. Scores of 10 being the least free and 50 being the permitted. South Africa had a score of 20, meaning that South African citizens have low freedom.
