Philippines Ranks 88th in Freedom and 102nd in Prosperity in Atlantic Council's 2026 Indexes
Key Takeaways
- •The Philippines scored 62.9 out of 100 in the Freedom Index, which the report classifies as low freedom.
- •The Philippines scored 62.4 out of 100 in the Prosperity Index, which the report classifies as low prosperity.
- •The 2026 rankings placed the Philippines 88th in freedom and 102nd in prosperity among 171 countries and territories.
- •The Freedom Index evaluates economic, political, and legal freedom, while the Prosperity Index covers income, health, education, environment, minority opportunities, and income equality.
- •The Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes are updated annually and include comparisons with regional peers such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.
The Philippines placed 88th and 102nd out of 171 countries in the 2026 edition of the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes released by the US-based think tank Atlantic Council.
Out of 100 possible points, the Philippines scored 62.9 in the Freedom Index, corresponding to a low freedom status, and 62.4 in the Prosperity Index, corresponding to a low prosperity status.
The Freedom Index measures three dimensions of freedom: economic, political, and legal. In the Center's framework, economic freedom reflects the ability of individuals to make decisions about their property and economic activity, legal freedom reflects the strength of the rule of law, and political freedom reflects the ability of citizens to participate in the political process. The Prosperity Index, in turn, ranks countries according to six components: income, health, education, environment, opportunities for minorities, and income equality.
The two indexes are designed to be read alongside each other. The Center's published analyses report a strong association between freedom and prosperity across the countries assessed, with the freest countries consistently ranking among the most prosperous, a finding the Center cites in arguing that expanding freedom tends to support higher prosperity over the long run.
The Atlantic Council, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank founded in 1961. Its Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, produced by the Council's Freedom and Prosperity Center and first published in 2022, are released annually and assess more than 170 countries and territories using publicly available data. Because the rankings are updated each year, the Philippines' standing can be tracked over time and compared with regional neighbors such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, which are also covered by the assessment. The full methodology, sub-scores, and country-level results, including the Philippines' performance in each freedom and prosperity component, are available on the indexes' official website.
