How we calculate passport access
This page documents exactly how every score, percentage, and ranking on Globereach is produced — no black boxes, no third-party numbers presented as our own.
What we measure
Globereach measures where a passport holder can travel without arranging a visa in advance. The total destination count comes from the countries in our database, and every passport / destination pair carries a policy tier — one of the categories listed below — plus, where published, a maximum permitted stay in days.
The access tiers
Every score on the site is built from the same set of policy tiers. Color is always paired with its label and definition below — never used on its own to convey status.
| Tier | Definition | Counts toward score |
|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Your own passport's issuing country — always freely accessible. | Counted |
| Permit Required | Entry requires a residency or work permit arranged in advance. | Not counted |
| OECS Freedom of Movement | Free movement rights shared by member states of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. | Counted |
| MERCOSUR Freedom of Movement | Free movement rights shared by MERCOSUR member and associate states. | Counted |
| EU Freedom of Movement | Free movement rights shared by European Union member states. | Counted |
| GCC Freedom of Movement | Free movement rights shared by Gulf Cooperation Council member states. | Counted |
| Freedom of Movement | A general reciprocal free-movement arrangement not covered by the specific blocs listed separately. | Counted |
| Visa Free | Entry is permitted without a visa, ETA, or any advance approval. | Counted |
| Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) | Entry requires only a lightweight electronic travel authorisation, typically processed automatically. | Counted |
| Visa on Arrival / E-Visa | A combined visa-on-arrival / e-visa route that can usually be completed on or shortly before arrival. | Counted |
| Visa on Arrival | A visa is issued at the border on arrival, without an embassy application beforehand. | Counted |
| E-Visa | An online visa must be approved before departure, even though no embassy visit is required. | Not counted |
| Special Permit | Entry depends on a specific permit or authorisation scheme outside the standard visa process. | Not counted |
| Simplified Visa | A streamlined visa process that still requires an application before travel. | Not counted |
| Confirmation Required | Entry conditions depend on a confirmation step from the destination that cannot be verified programmatically for every traveller. | Not counted |
| Visa Required | A standard visa must be obtained from an embassy or consulate before travel. | Not counted |
| ECOWAS Freedom of Movement | Free movement rights shared by member states of the Economic Community of West African States. | Counted |
Note: a further tier, "Gained via Program", is used only on Citizenship/Residency-by-Investment program pages to describe access gained through a specific program. It is not part of this table and is not used in any access score or ranking.
How the access score is calculated
A destination counts as accessible when its best available tier for your passport(s) is: home country, any freedom-of-movement arrangement (EU, MERCOSUR, OECS, GCC, ECOWAS, or general), visa free, electronic travel authorisation (ETA), or visa on arrival — including the combined visa-on-arrival / e-visa tier.
E-visa, simplified visa, special permit, confirmation-required, permit-required, and visa-required destinations are deliberately excluded from the accessible count, because each of these still requires an application, fee, or approval to be arranged before departure.
The percentage shown throughout the site is simply: accessible destinations ÷ total destinations × 100. This is a stricter definition than some published mobility indices, which count e-visas as visa-free access — as a result, Globereach's percentages can read slightly lower than other sources for the same passport. That honesty is the point.
How combining passports works
When you add more than one passport, we evaluate each destination independently and take the single best outcome across all of your selected passports, ranked by tier priority. When two passports resolve to the same tier for a destination, we keep the one with the longer permitted stay — an unlimited or unspecified duration is treated as better than any fixed number of days.
Because we always take the best available outcome, adding a passport to your profile can only raise or maintain your score — it never lowers it. Each passport's own issuing country is always counted as accessible.
How rankings are built
The ranking on the Rankings page is computed live from the same policy data described above — it is not copied from a third-party index. For every country, treated in turn as a passport, we count the destinations that meet the accessible-tier rule from "How the access score is calculated", plus one for the country's own territory. We then sort every country descending by that count and assign ranks with tie handling: countries with an identical score share the same rank, and the next distinct score receives the next sequential rank (ties are not skipped).
Because our ordering uses a different tier-inclusion rule and a different destination list than other published passport indices, our ranking positions can differ from theirs even for the same passport.
Where the data comes from, and how current it is
Visa policy is recorded from officially published government sources. Where we have one on file, individual destination pages link directly to that official source rather than burying it in a collapsed panel.
Policies change frequently, and sometimes without advance notice. Temporary or reciprocal suspensions may not be reflected immediately. Some published rules also depend on factors we do not model — purpose of travel, onward or return tickets, remaining passport validity, and prior travel history can all affect real-world entry decisions that a single policy tier cannot fully capture.
Not immigration advice
Globereach is an information tool, not immigration advice. Always confirm entry requirements with the destination's embassy or official immigration authority before booking travel.