Malawi’s passport holds ninth place among Africa’s 54 passports, while the country ranks 34th globally in a separate measure of how readily it admits foreign passport holders, according to Passport Reports. The platform, which publishes passport analyses for 199 countries in 34 languages, places the Malawi passport ranking at 115th worldwide in data updated on 18 October 2026.

Malawi’s Mobility Score is 64, equivalent to 32.3% of the 198 foreign destinations assessed. Its holders have visa-free access to 41 destinations, can enter six with an electronic travel authorization, and qualify for visa on arrival or related facilitated arrival arrangements in 17. For the remaining 134 destinations, the report records a visa requirement before travel. The three simplified-access categories together account for the 64-point score.

The platform’s historical series records a Mobility Score of 80 and a global position of 108th for Malawi in 2025, compared with 64 and 115th in the current 2026 edition.

African and international comparisons

Malawi ranks ninth among the 54 passports in both the Africa-wide and African Union tables. Within the Commonwealth it places 39th of 56 countries; among the G77, 64th of 132; and among World Trade Organization members, 108th of 159.

In other Passport Reports comparisons, Malawi is 41st of 60 countries where English is an official language and 27th of 57 presidential republics. Each position reflects passport mobility within that defined group, not a separate measure of Malawi’s overall standing in the world.

Visitor access runs in the other direction

Malawi’s 34th-place position on the Most Welcoming Countries list measures conditions for foreign passport holders entering Malawi, rather than the outward travel access of Malawian citizens. In its Malawi visa-requirements data, Passport Reports lists 42 nationalities that may enter visa-free, 109 eligible for visas on arrival and 47 requiring a visa in advance. That gives 151 of the 198 foreign passports a visa-free or arrival-based entry route under the platform’s current classification.

The two directions are not necessarily reciprocal. The United Kingdom is an example: British passport holders are listed as eligible for a visa on arrival for up to 30 days in Malawi, while Malawian travellers require a visa before entering the UK. For outbound travel, the report lists Malaysia and Singapore as visa-free, with arrival-card procedures and 30-day stays; Seychelles falls under electronic travel authorization, with tourist registration and a 90-day stay. Burundi and Ethiopia are in the visa-on-arrival category, with stated periods of 30 and 90 days respectively.

Schengen access: a hypothetical rise to 85th

Malawi is not a Schengen member, and the passport report classifies all 29 Schengen member destinations as requiring a visa before departure for Malawian passport holders. If those 29 destinations granted visa-free access, with all other passport data held constant, Malawi’s Mobility Score would rise from 64 to 93. Its visa-free count would increase from 41 to 70, while six electronic travel authorization destinations and 17 visa-on-arrival or related facilitated-arrival destinations would remain unchanged; the destinations requiring an advance visa would fall from 134 to 105.

Applying the published Passport Reports ranking rules to this hypothetical scenario produces an 85th-place global ranking, compared with Malawi’s actual 115th position. The result is consistent with the existing adjacent scores: Kuwait is 84th with 95 mobility points, while South Africa is 85th with 92. The calculation is conditional and does not describe a change to Schengen visa policy.

Ranking methodology

Different passport indexes may produce different positions because of the ways they classify entry arrangements, award points and resolve ties. Passport Reports applies the same predetermined, measurable criteria to all passports and keeps the ordering rules public. A Mobility Score adds together destinations reachable visa-free, with a visa on arrival or comparable facilitated arrival procedure, and with an electronic travel authorization. Passport Reports ranks passports first by that total; where totals tie, it compares visa-free access, then electronic travel authorization access, and finally visa-on-arrival or related facilitated arrival access. If all four measures match, the passports share a rank. These consistent rules allow the ranking to be assessed transparently rather than shaped by factors unrelated to travel access.

Source: Passport Reports