Macau rises to 27th in Financial Secrecy Index

Macau has moved up four spots to rank 27th out of 141 jurisdictions in the 2025 Financial Secrecy Index (FSI), released by the UK-based Tax Justice Network.

The new position places the city among the world’s top enablers of financial secrecy.

A higher rank indicates a greater global role in facilitating secrecy, the Tax Justice Network states. “The FSI measures a country’s role using two main factors: its Secrecy Score and its Global Scale Weight.”

The Tax Justice Network assesses jurisdictions based on legal transparency, cooperation, and compliance with international standards, focusing on factors such as banking secrecy, ownership registration, and legal assistance.

The network warns that such secrecy “enables tax abuse, makes drug cartels ‘bankable,’ and keeps human trafficking ‘profitable.’”

Macau’s secrecy score has increased from 63 out of 100 in 2022 to 66 in 2025. At the same time, its global scale weight –  representing the proportion of financial services it provides globally – has slightly decreased from 0.3% to 0.2%.

Despite this decline, Macau’s overall FSI value rose from 341 to 386, contributing to its higher global ranking.

According to the network, Macau received low scores for a lack of transparency in areas like company ownership, freeports, real estate, and partnerships.

On a global scale, the United States remains the largest enabler of financial secrecy, followed by Switzerland (2nd), Singapore (3rd), Hong Kong (4th), and Luxembourg (5th).

Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda holds the highest secrecy score among all jurisdictions.
According to the Tax Justice Network’s website, the FSI is the first comprehensive global effort to identify and rank the various mechanisms facilitating financial secrecy worldwide.