US passport drops from top spot as Americans reconsider where they can live
New research from Global Citizen Solutions tracks a shift in American mobility, with the US passport falling from 1st to 14th place in five years as interest in moving abroad continues to rise.
The US passport has slipped from first to 14th place in a global ranking, according to new research from the Global Intelligence Unit (GIU), the research arm of residency advisory firm Global Citizen Solutions.
The finding appears in a wider briefing, From Destination to Departure: America’s New Migration Story, which looks at what it describes as a long-term rise in American emigration and a gradual shift in how mobility is measured and used.
The Global Passport Index, compiled by GIU, ranks passports by travel freedom, lifestyle access and investment value across 199 countries. In 2021 the US sat in first place; by 2025 it had fallen to 14th, reflecting both weaker relative mobility and the rise of competing passports offering broader access.
Behind the ranking shift, the research points to a steady increase in Americans living and moving abroad. Pew Research estimates 2.2 million people left the US in 2025, including around 180,000 US citizens. The Association of Americans Resident Overseas puts the number of Americans living abroad at 5.5 million in 2024, up slightly from the previous year.
The report also draws on Gallup survey data showing a longer-term change in sentiment. The share of Americans expressing a desire to emigrate rose from around 10–11% in the Bush and Obama years to 16–20% during the first Trump administration, reaching 20% by late 2025. Among women aged 15–44, that figure is put at 40%.
More concrete indicators are found in citizenship renunciations, often used as a proxy for permanent exit. Fewer than 400 Americans renounced citizenship annually before 2009. By 2024, that figure had reached 4,820. In early 2025, 1,285 people renounced in a single quarter — more than double the previous quarter — with a backlog of more than 30,000 applications reported.
A separate development highlighted in the report is the US State Department’s decision in April 2026 to reduce the citizenship renunciation fee from $2,350 to $450, a move expected to lower one of the barriers to exit.
The GIU also notes the scale of potential mobility options already available to Americans, estimating that between 7 and 10 million hold dual citizenship, while up to 30 million may qualify for European passports through ancestry routes.
Taken together, the data points to a widening gap between legal mobility and actual use of it — and to a passport that, while still powerful on paper, is no longer sitting at the top of the global hierarchy it once dominated.
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.