South Africa’s passport usage now ranks 100th in the world. This places it at middling placement that comes across as weaker due to several limited Visa-free travel, poor global perception and limited personal freedoms. This research was conducted by Nomad Capitalist, a tax and immigration consultancy, as per its Nomad Passport Index 2025. Unique to other passport ranking metrics, Nomad Capitalist analyses five important criteria of passport strength:
- Visa-Free travel (50%)
- Taxation (20%)
- Global Perception (10%)
- Ability to hold dual citizenship (10%) and
- Personal Freedom (10%)
The aim of these factors will allow people who consider a different or additional passport to better understand the “true value” of citizenship around the world.
South Africa ranked 100th in the ranking, tied with Ecuador, with a total score of 68.50 – far behind Ireland’s 109.0. For the visa-free travel section (which accounts for 50% of the score), South Africans can travel to 111 countries without a visa on arrival, or via an eTA. This is well below Ireland’s 176, or even Ukraine’s 149. When looking at taxation (20%), Nomad Capitalist relies on data from its network of tax vendors, news sources, and tax authorities themselves. It assigned the lowest score of 10 to countries that tax citizens no matter where they are, all the way to countries with zero tax at a score of 50. South Africa received a taxation score of 20, meaning that South Africa allows citizens to relocate to avoid tax.
Perception (10%) relied on the World Happiness Report, the Human Development Index, and subjective factors from Nomad Capitalist networks’ experiences to determine how each country’s citizens are recognised.
The fact that South Africa ranks in 100th with the small South American nation Ecuador is quite embarrassing. It casts a bad reflection on South Africa as whole from leadership to society. Even war torn and economically damaged Ukraine ranks higher up the scale. The rise in high taxation by the country’s government is largely due to the imposition of tariffs by the US as well as government overspending. The Government of National Unity needs to come up with a new economic strategy to improve the dire situation. The current circumstances are implying it will be much dire for South Africans to receive dual citizenship from another country. This will make it difficult for them to work abroad and not receive benefits. The South African economy is currently shrinking due to its largest benefactor the United State choosing to withdraw trade.
Perception of popularity for a host country depends on how they are viewed by potential expatriates. Whether they are able to deliver in terms of justice, economics, business and personal freedoms.
Meanwhile the country’s main software company Codehesion is partnering with the country’s businesses to scale their development and ensure successful software projects.
Codehesion has won numerous awards, including the prestigious MTN Business App of the Year Award, and two Supersonic New Generation Social & Digital Media Awards. Its long list of satisfied clients includes local and global market leaders like Woolworths, Hyundai, Leroy Merlin, Tiger Wheel & Tyre, City Lodge, and Peermont Global. Over the last eight years, Codehesion has built exceptional skills in custom software development, mobile app development, code audits, and software maintenance. It has also become the preferred partner for companies to complement their own software development teams and help them scale. Codehesion offers companies additional software development resources and skills to ensure timely project delivery and top-quality code.
Codehesion is helping companies upgrade their software to prepare for the introduction of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), predictive analytics and machine learning. This is what it means to scale on these new technologies to custom software development, mobile app development, code audits, and software maintenance. The local and international clients they have served, meaning the ones mentioned above have been able to enhance their old business practices and technologies to better serve their customers and sales recipients. Adapting to a new technology for your business is not an easy task and there is a need for software companies to guide their clients as to what is the best technology there is for them to obtain. Business wants the best results and Codehesion has accomplished that for them.
Article written by:
Yacoob Cassim
Journalist at Radio Al Ansaar
