Did India’s passport ranking fall from 76th in 2014 to 125th in 2026 under the Modi government? Fact Check
Claim: Under the Modi government, India’s passport ranking declined from 76th in 2014 to 125th in 2026.
Conclusion: The claim is misleading. It compares India’s rankings from two entirely different passport indices that use incompatible methodologies. While the Henley Passport Index ranked India 76th in 2014, the Global Citizen Solutions Global Passport Index ranked India 125th in 2026. However, these rankings cannot be directly compared because the two indices measure different parameters. According to the 2026 Henley Passport Index, India is ranked 80th globally, not 125th.
Rating: Misleading 
Several social media users have claimed that India’s passport ranking has declined from 76th in 2014 to 125th in 2026 under the Modi government. Among them, Supriya Shrinate, the national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress, shared the claim on Instagram. In her post, she shared an image stating that “India’s passport is losing power under Modi” and displayed what it described as figures from the Global Passport Index. The image claimed that India’s passport ranking fell from 76th in 2014 to 125th in 2026. View the post below –
View this post on Instagram
FACT CHECK
DigitEYE India decided to investigate this claim and found it to be misleading. The claim draws a comparison between two separate passport indices that follow different ranking methodologies. The Henley Passport Index placed India 76th in 2014, while the Global Citizen Solutions Global Passport Index ranked India 125th in 2026. Since these indices evaluate different factors, their rankings are not directly comparable.
Details:
We first conducted a web search to verify the statistics displayed in the graphic shared alongside the claim. According to the official website of Global Passport Index by Global Citizen Solutions, India is ranked 125th in 2026. View a screenshot of this below –
However, DigitEYE learnt that the Global Passport Index by Global Citizen Solutions did not exist in 2014. According to the ‘Our Company’ section on their official website, they “launched Global Citizen Solutions in 2017, helping people invest, relocate, and reimagine their lives abroad.” This means the Global Passport Index could not have published a ranking for 2014. Therefore, the viral post compares figures from two different indices produced by two different organizations.
Following this, we searched for the source of the 76th ranking in 2014 to identify which passport index it referred to. Our search found that the Henley Passport Index ranked India 76th in 2014. However, the same index places India at 80th in its 2026 rankings, not 125th. Therefore, the Henley Passport Index does not show any decline to the 125th position. View the data below –
Ranking based on Methodologies:
We also noted that the two indices use different methodologies to rank passports. According to the Henley Passport Index FAQ, “each passport is given a visa-free score… reflects how many destinations the passport has visa-free access to. The more destinations a passport has access to, the higher it scores on the index.” On the other hand, Global Citizen Solutions states that its Global Passport Index “evaluates not only a passport’s access to travel freedom, but the stability, quality of life, and economic opportunity it enables.”
Therefore, the 76th rank in 2014 comes from the Henley Passport Index and 125th rank in 2026 comes from the Global Citizen Solutions Global Passport Index. Since these indices measure different parameters, their rankings are not directly comparable.
Thus, the claim is misleading.
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