India Passport Ranking 2026: Did It Fall From 76th to 125th? What Is Known

A graphic saying India’s passport has fallen from 76th in the world in 2014 to 125th in 2026 is still being shared on WhatsApp and X, months after the Congress first posted it in July. The comparison does not hold: the two numbers come from two different rankings, and one of them did not exist in 2014. But the correction is not the end of the story. On the index that did rank India 76th in 2014, India now stands at 84th, so the passport has slipped, just not by as much as the graphic says.

What the Viral Graphic Claimed

The image, titled along the lines of “Passport global ranking under Modi”, shows India at 76th in 2014 and 125th in 2026. The Congress’s official Facebook page posted it in early July, and it spread on Instagram and X, The Quint and NewsMeter reported at the time. It has resurfaced in recent weeks, often without a date.

Where the Two Numbers Come From

Misleading. The 76th rank for 2014 is from the Henley Passport Index, run by the London firm Henley & Partners using IATA travel data. The 125th rank for 2026 is from a different list, the Global Passport Index of Global Citizen Solutions, which uses its own method and only started in 2017. There is no 2014 figure on that list to compare with.

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A third ranking, Arton Capital’s Passport Index, puts India at around 65th to 66th in 2026. Each index counts different things, such as visa-on-arrival, e-visas or quality-of-life factors, so a country’s place can differ by dozens of spots between them. Comparing a number from one with a number from another tells you nothing about change over time.

What the Like-for-Like Comparison Shows

Using only the Henley index, India was 76th in 2014. It was 85th in October 2025, rose to 80th in January 2026, and stood at 84th in the October 2026 update, shared with Algeria and Mauritania. Indian passport holders can now enter 55 destinations without a prior visa, including those offering visa on arrival or an electronic travel authorisation, down from 57 a year earlier. Singapore tops the list with 193.

A rank also depends on how other passports perform, not only on India. India’s rank can fall in a year when other countries win new visa waivers faster, even if India loses none. Still, over the same index and the same method, India is eight places lower than it was in 2014.

What Is Known, and What Is Not

Known: the 76-to-125 comparison is invalid because it joins two different indexes. On the Henley index, India has moved from 76th in 2014 to 84th today, with 55 visa-free destinations.

Not settled: whether India’s passport is “weaker” in any practical sense. India has signed visa and mobility deals with several countries in recent years, and many popular destinations now offer Indians e-visas, which the Henley index scores as zero because they must be applied for in advance.

More checks are on our Fact Check page, including this week’s Lavrov deepfake check.

Source: Henley Passport Index, October 2026 update, as reported by BankExamsToday; January 2026 index as reported by Gulf News. Also based on fact-checks by The Quint and NewsMeter.

Image: Indian passport (file photo) / Wikimedia Commons.