Passport Reports
Passport Reports, which publishes passport analyses for 199 countries in 34 languages, places Ethiopia 50th worldwide in a ranking of countries by the ease of entry they offer foreign passport holders. Its 18 October 2026 update of the Ethiopia passport ranking puts Ethiopian passport holders in 169th place globally. The two figures measure different directions of international travel: entry into Ethiopia and trips abroad by Ethiopian citizens.
The Ethiopian passport has a mobility score of 39, providing visa-free or simplified access to 19.7% of the 198 destinations counted outside Ethiopia. That consists of 13 visa-free destinations, 22 destinations offering visas on arrival or related facilitated-entry arrangements, and four destinations in the electronic travel authorisation category. An advance visa is required for the remaining 159 destinations.
Travel access and entry procedures
Among the visa-free destinations recorded for Ethiopian passport holders are Kenya, Rwanda, Gambia and Singapore; Singapore also requires an arrival card and lists a 30-day stay. Suriname is in the visa-free category with a tourist-card procedure and a 90-day stay. These conditions illustrate why visa-free status need not mean travel without entry formalities.
The electronic travel authorisation category includes Côte d’Ivoire, with pre-enrolment and a stated 90-day stay, and Seychelles, with tourist registration and a stated 90-day stay. Cambodia appears under visa on arrival, with an electronic visa also available and a stated 30-day stay; Djibouti is listed in the same category with a 90-day stay, while Thailand is listed with a 15-day stay. The conditions apply to the destinations named and should not be generalised to others.
African and international comparisons
Passport Reports places Ethiopia 49th out of 54 African passports and 49th among 54 African Union countries. In other groups where the country appears, it ranks 10th out of 11 BRICS countries and 116th out of 132 countries in the G77 comparison.
The thematic tables also place Ethiopia first among two countries grouped by Somali as an official language and first among two countries grouped by Tigrinya. Among eight countries classified as federal parliamentary republics, its passport ranks fourth. These are rankings within separately defined groups, not alternative world positions.
Visitor access and the Schengen comparison
The visitor-access result points in the opposite direction: Ethiopia ranks 50th among 199 destinations for the ease of entry it offers foreign passport holders. This welcoming-country measure concerns foreigners travelling into Ethiopia, whereas the passport-mobility score measures Ethiopian nationals’ access abroad.
Ethiopia is not a Schengen Area member, and Passport Reports lists advance visas as required for Ethiopian nationals at each of the 29 Schengen destinations counted in the comparison. If those 29 destinations granted visa-free entry, while every other passport and entry rule remained unchanged, Ethiopia’s hypothetical world ranking would be 106th. Its mobility score would increase from 39 to 68, the visa-free count from 13 to 42, and the advance-visa count would fall from 159 to 130; its calculated access share would become 34.3%.
In that static comparison, the revised Ethiopian passport would sit below Botswana, whose current mobility score is 69, and ahead of Morocco, which also has 68 points but 40 visa-free destinations. The scenario describes a conditional calculation, not an announced policy change.
Methodology
Different passport indexes can produce different rankings because they classify travel permissions, assign points and resolve ties differently. Passport Reports applies the same predefined, measurable criteria to all passports and publishes the order of comparison: the mobility score equals the sum of visa-free destinations, destinations accessible through visas on arrival or comparable facilitated-entry arrangements, and destinations accessible with an electronic travel authorisation. Passports are compared first by total mobility score, then, in order, by visa-free access, electronic travel authorisation access and the visa-on-arrival/facilitated-entry count. If all four values are identical, they share the same rank. These published criteria make the comparisons transparent and consistent.
Source: Passport Reports
https://www.passportreports.com/
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