How 128 countries are scored, normalised and compared

1. Purpose and rationale

Although many global rankings exist, few provide a holistic, practical and decision-oriented comparison of countries across the factors that matter most to individuals and families considering relocation, investment migration or long-term mobility planning. Existing indices tend to focus on a single dimension, which makes them useful for narrow analysis but insufficient for real-world decision-making.

There is currently limited unified measurement that simultaneously compares the financial implications of living in a country, the personal security environment and the long-term education prospects for children and families. As a result, individuals must consult multiple fragmented sources, making meaningful comparison difficult. This Index fills that gap with a single, coherent and transparent framework.

Tax, safety, cost of living and education were chosen because each addresses a distinct and largely independent dimension of that decision. Tax burden speaks to how much of one's income or business profit is retained. Safety speaks to physical security and institutional stability. Cost of living speaks to how far a given income stretches day to day. Education speaks to the strength of the knowledge economy, both for raising a family and for building or staffing a business.

A deliberate design choice is that the I-Passport Index does not generate new primary research. Each factor is drawn from an existing, independently produced and regularly updated dataset compiled by a credible institution with its own established methodology. The Index's contribution lies in transforming four differently scaled and differently oriented datasets into a single comparable framework, and in enabling the AI-powered advisor to identify suitable destinations from that verified data.

2. The four factors in detail

2.1 Tax

Drawn from the Tax Burden sub-score of the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, an annual publication tracking economic policy conditions worldwide. The Tax Burden component is itself a composite of the top marginal individual income tax rate, the top marginal corporate income tax rate, and total tax burden as a percentage of GDP. It is published on a 100-point scale where a higher score reflects a lighter overall tax burden. The Index of Economic Freedom has been published annually for over three decades, uses transparent methodology, and relies on internationally recognised tax guides from KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and government authorities.

Index of Economic Freedom - The Heritage Foundation

2.2 Safety

Drawn from the Global Peace Index, produced annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace. It is a composite of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators across three domains: ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and degree of militarisation. Underlying data comes from sources including the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the UNODC Survey of Crime Trends, and the IEP Global Terrorism Index.

Global Peace Index - Institute for Economics and Peace

2.3 Cost of living

Drawn from the Numbeo Cost of Living Index, the largest database of consumer prices in the world. Numbeo aggregates user-submitted prices for groceries, restaurants, transport, utilities and comparable everyday expenses, indexing each country relative to New York City at a baseline of 100. It is updated continuously, serving as a dynamic benchmark of everyday affordability.

Cost of Living Index - Numbeo

2.4 Education

Drawn from the Global Knowledge Index, jointly produced by the United Nations Development Programme and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation. It evaluates education and knowledge systems across six sectors: pre-university education, technical and vocational training, higher education, research and innovation, ICT, and the general economy and enabling environment. Inputs are drawn from UNESCO, the World Bank, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the WHO, and it is published on a 100-point scale.

Global Knowledge Index - UNDP & MBRF

3. Normalisation and composite score

Before the four factors can be combined, they must be placed on a common footing, because each source publishes on a different scale. The Index of Economic Freedom and the Global Knowledge Index are already on a 100-point scale where higher is better, so neither requires transformation.

The Global Peace Index runs from 1 (most peaceful) to 5 (least peaceful), the reverse of the higher-is-better convention. Each raw GPI value is rescaled:

The Numbeo Cost of Living Index is open-ended and benchmarked to New York City, with lower values more desirable. Min-max normalisation rescales it so the lowest observed cost of living maps to 100 and the highest to 0:

Max and Min are the highest and lowest raw values observed across the included countries and territories, not fixed external constants.

3.1 Equal-weighted baseline

Once all four factors sit on the same 0-100 scale, the simplest baseline is an equal-weighted average. This gives each factor the same influence on the result:

3.2 Personalised weighting on the ranking page

Users of I-Passport Index can assign an importance weight from 1 (not important) to 5 (essential) to each of the four factors. The platform then computes a personalised final score and ranking based on those weights.

Let w_t, w_s, w_c and w_e be the user-supplied weights for Tax, Safety, Cost of Living and Education respectively, and let the corresponding normalised factor scores be S_t, S_s, S_c and S_e. The personalised final score is the weighted arithmetic mean:

A factor rated 5 receives five times the influence of a factor rated 1, while the default setting of 3 for every factor reproduces the equal-weighted baseline.

Until the user applies a weighting on the I-Passport Index, the final-score column remains blank and reads “Set weighting”. Once weights are applied, only countries with complete data across all four factors receive a personalised score and rank; countries missing one or more source values are published with those factors marked as unavailable and are not assigned a rank.

4. Supplementary data: tax rates and citizenship

Alongside the composite score, each country page presents two further layers of information covering tax rates and pathways to citizenship. These are presented independently and are not incorporated into the Final Score.

Taxation information is compiled from PwC's Worldwide Tax Summaries and national government tax authority websites, with links to source material for verification. It presents concrete figures - personal income tax rates, corporate tax rates and VAT - offering a level of detail the single tax-burden score is not designed to capture.

Worldwide Tax Summaries - PwC

Citizenship information is drawn from national immigration websites, nationality legislation, official government guidance and, in some cases, direct communication with immigration authorities. It covers minimum residency periods, language proficiency standards, the availability of residency- or citizenship-by-investment programmes, and whether dual citizenship is permitted.

Because tax and immigration rules change with little notice, each entry carries a clearly stated “as of” date. Users should consult a qualified tax or immigration professional before making decisions based on this information.

5. AI relocation advisor and personal weighting

The site offers two ways to tailor results to individual priorities. On the Country Index, visitors can rate each factor from 1 (not important) to 5 (essential) and the ranking is recalculated using the weighted-average formula described above. This gives an immediate, transparent score and rank driven entirely by the user's own priorities.

The AI advisor lets users describe, in their own words, what they are looking for in a destination - lower tax, a safer environment, a lower cost of living, stronger education, or some combination. The tool returns a shortlist of suggested countries reflecting those stated preferences.

Both tools function as fully closed-loop systems that search exclusively within the I-Passport Index. All outputs derive solely from the site's verified dataset, and recommendations are produced by aligning stated preferences with the data documented here. The advisor does not rely on external, unverified information. Open the advisor.

6. Limitations

The baseline formula weights all four factors equally to provide a balanced, neutral starting point. Because visitors can now adjust each factor's importance from 1 to 5 on the I-Passport Index, the published ranking is intentionally personalised rather than prescriptive. A user with different priorities may reasonably arrive at a personal ranking that differs from the equal-weighted baseline.

Two countries can receive the same personalised final score despite very different underlying profiles. The Index therefore publishes all four sub-scores alongside the composite so the drivers of each position are visible.

National-level indicators cannot capture regional or city-level variation within large countries, where conditions in a capital may differ sharply from rural areas.

Certain smaller territories and jurisdictions have limited or incomplete data across one or more of the four sources, which constrains how fully their profiles can be evaluated.

7. Significance and applications

The Index gives individuals and families a standardised starting point for comparing countries along the dimensions that drive real-world relocation, investment and retirement decisions, without separately reconciling four datasets. An expat or digital nomad can compare affordability and safety at a glance. A retiree on fixed pension income can weigh tax burden against cost of living. An investor can screen jurisdictions for effective tax burden alongside the strength of the local education and skills base. A researcher or journalist can cite it as a reproducible, source-linked dataset, because every formula and source is disclosed in full.

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