2018 Findings: Top 10/20 scoring countries
A closer look at visa openness by category in the top 10 and 20 scoring countries: no visa, visa on arrival, visa required*
The top 10 and the top 20 most visa- open countries continued to improve their average score in 2018, reflecting a number of countries’ more liberal visa policies.
The average score for all African countries is just over half of the average score of the top 10 most visa-open countries, showing that the top performers remain significantly ahead.
Africa’s upper-middle economies as a group have low visa openness scores, while most of the top 20 countries in the Index are low-income or lower-middle income economies.
Average visa openness scores, 2018
Highlights
- Seychelles and Benin are the top performing countries, offering visa-free access to all Africans.
- Two new countries from West Africa (Benin) and Southern Africa (Zimbabwe) entered the top 20 most visa-open countries.
- Average score for the top 10 countries is 0.878 (up from 0.853 in 2017, and 0.861 in 2016).
- Average score for the top 20 countries is 0.807 (up from 0.768 in 2017, and 0.734 in 2016).
- Average score for all countries is 0.443 (up from 0.420 in 2017, and 0.425 in 2016).
Top 20 most visa-open countries
- 18 of the top 20 countries are low- income or lower-middle income economies. 7 out of 8 of Africa’s upper-middle income economies have low visa openness scores.
- All the top 20 most visa-open countries (where data is available) have an upward trajectory on travel and tourism figures on GDP, visitor exports and investments.
- 18 of the top 20 most visa-open countries improved their overall performance in the World Bank Group’s Doing Business 2018 ‘distance to frontier’ measure, showing how economies are becoming more open.
- Half of the top 20 most visa-open countries have an upward trend of real GDP growth.
