Staff Reporter:
Bangladesh’s global mobility and international standing have taken a severe hit over the past year, with its passport ranking plunging to one of the weakest worldwide amid mounting reports of visa restrictions, deportations, and eroding international confidence.
According to the 2025 Henley Passport Index, released on October 14 by UK-based Henley & Partners, Bangladesh now ranks 100th out of 106 countries, placing its passport among the seven weakest globally. Bangladesh shares this position with North Korea, while Palestine ranks just above at 99th.
Bangladeshi citizens currently enjoy visa-free access to only 38 countries — a figure that many travelers question, citing growing instances of entry denials and heightened scrutiny even in so-called “visa-free” destinations.
A passport’s strength is influenced by multiple factors, including a country’s economic condition, social development, job opportunities, diplomatic relations, visa treaties, historical or cultural ties, and patterns of irregular migration.
Experts attribute Bangladesh’s steep decline to governance failures, human trafficking scandals, and strained diplomatic ties following the student-led ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government.
Relations with India, Bangladesh’s largest travel destination, have deteriorated sharply since the political transition. India shut down all visa centers across Bangladesh on August 5, 2024, citing “security concerns,” though limited medical and student visa services later resumed.
Sri Lanka has introduced mandatory Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) for Bangladeshi travelers, while Saudi Arabia suspended work visas for Bangladesh and 13 other nations in May 2025.
Several other countries — including Denmark, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam — have tightened their visa screening for Bangladeshi applicants. Travelers report longer verification periods, higher rejection rates, and even being offloaded at airports despite holding valid visas.
The recent surge in deportations of undocumented Bangladeshis has further deepened the passport crisis.
On September 8, Kyrgyzstan deported 180 unregistered Bangladeshis defrauded by recruitment agents, while the United States deported 30 others earlier that month. Between January 2024 and September 2025, at least 187 Bangladeshis were deported from the US alone.
In late September, another 52 Bangladeshis were deported from Italy, Austria, Greece, and Cyprus, and on August 30, the UK expelled 15 individuals for immigration violations. Malaysia also deported 98 Bangladeshis on August 15, following earlier removals of 204 others.
Analysts note that these failures — coupled with the surge in irregular migration and human trafficking — have directly undermined the credibility of Bangladesh’s passport abroad.
The 2025 US Department of State Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report again placed Bangladesh in Tier 2, citing limited progress in combating human trafficking. It identified 3,410 Bangladeshi victims in the past year — including 765 in sex trafficking, 2,572 in forced labor, and 73 in other forms of exploitation — while official government data acknowledged only 1,462 victims.
Meanwhile, the law and order situation has sharply deteriorated since mid-2024. According to Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), 179 people were killed in mob attacks between August 2024 and June 2025, including several incidents that shocked the nation, such as the lynching of two men in Rangpur’s Taraganj on August 9.
At an event held in July at the Foreign Service Academy, Expatriates’ Welfare Adviser Asif Nazrul said that despite holding an official red passport, he often faces suspicious looks abroad simply for being Bangladeshi — adding that experiences are “far worse” when traveling on a regular green passport.
Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain, speaking at the same event, acknowledged that Bangladeshis frequently face harassment overseas, admitting that the passport’s declining value is partly the nation’s own doing, not solely the result of foreign prejudice.
Dhaka University Professor Aynul Islam explained that Bangladesh’s passport ranking fell for two key reasons:
“First, our e-passport technology is not fully integrated with global databases. While it is machine-readable, it lacks full adaptability, preventing Bangladeshis from using automated immigration systems,” he said.
“Second, following the political transition, there has been a sharp rise in attempts to migrate abroad, often through irregular means.”
Many individuals, he added, have misused passports by committing fraud or providing false information, which has further damaged the country’s reputation.
“Since July 2024, the number of Bangladeshis seeking political asylum overseas has reached record highs,” Aynul Islam noted. “These developments have made many countries increasingly cautious, prompting them to tighten entry restrictions for Bangladeshi nationals.”
He added that similar patterns in Sri Lanka and Nepal have worsened the region’s overall image, leading several embassies in Dhaka to pause or limit acceptance of Bangladeshi passports.
“This wider regional trend,” he said, “has contributed to the decline in passport rankings, as more countries grow reluctant to admit travelers from these South Asian nations.”
