Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: Nepal has ranked 90th among 165 jurisdictions in the “Economic Freedom of the World: 2026 Annual Report”, one notch down from last year.
According to Samriddhi Foundation, which prepared the report in collaboration with Canada’s Fraser Institute, Nepal achieved an overall economic freedom score of 6.59 on a scale of 1 to 10, where a higher value indicates a higher level of economic freedom.
In 2025, Nepal ranked 89th out of 165 jurisdictions with a score of 6.58.
“Despite the slight drop in ranking, the underlying dataset shows that Nepal’s economic freedom score has fully recovered from its pandemic-era decline, when its score fell from 6.52 in 2019 (98th) to 6.31 in 2020 (100th),” the foundation said in a statement.
According to the report, Nepal scored 7.25 in size of government, 4.82 in legal system and property rights, 7.57 in sound money, 6.39 in freedom to trade internationally and 6.9 in regulation. Of the 24 sub-indicators studied in the report, Nepal climbed in seven, slid in six, and maintained its position in eleven.
Hong Kong topped the ranking, followed by Switzerland and Singapore, while the Democratic Republic of Congo is at the bottom of the ranking, below the Republic of Congo and Egypt.
The Economic Freedom of the World report, produced annually by the Fraser Institute in cooperation with the Economic Freedom Network, measures how much a country’s policies and institutions support economic freedom.
