The 2026 State Freedom Index: All 50 States Ranked

Every year the same argument plays out at kitchen tables and on moving-company quotes: which state is actually the freest? We built the FreedomRankings index to answer it with numbers instead of vibes — scoring all 50 states from 0 to 100 across ten different freedoms, from gun rights and taxes to drug policy and due process. This is the 2026 edition: who came out on top, who landed at the bottom, and what the data says about how divided the country really is.

The short version

• Utah is the freest state in 2026 at 74.0 out of 100, narrowly ahead of New Hampshire (73.7) and Montana (72.1).
• Hawaii ranks last at 40.9, behind New York (41.3) and Delaware (43.0).
• The gap between first and last is 33.1 points — nearly a third of the whole scale.
• No state finishes first (or ties for first) in more than three of the ten categories. Freedom is a basket of trade-offs, not a single dial.
• Gun rights are the single most polarized freedom — a full 10-point spread from Wyoming (10.0) to New York (0.0).
• Americans are voting with their feet: 788,000+ people moved to the top-5 freest states between 2022 and 2025.

How the 2026 ranking breaks down

The index scores each state on ten categories — the four big constitutional freedoms (1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendment protections, plus due process inside criminal justice) and six policy areas where states diverge sharply: economic freedom, drug policy, property rights, religious liberty, education choice, and regulatory burden. Each category is scored 0–10, and the ten add up to a 0–100 overall score.

Gap between #1 and #50

33.1 pts — Gap between #1 and #50.

Top score — Utah

74.0 — Top score — Utah.

Lowest score — Hawaii

40.9 — Lowest score — Hawaii.

The average state scores 57.6 and the median is 57.5, so the typical state sits just above the midpoint of the scale. But the spread is the real story: a 33-point gap between Utah and Hawaii means the freest and least-free states are living under genuinely different policy regimes, not minor variations on the same theme.

Unlike older indexes — most notably the Cato Institute's Freedom in the 50 States, which hasn't published an update since 2023 — the FreedomRankings index updates each category as its underlying source releases a new edition. Eight of our ten categories are anchored to independent, annually-published datasets, which means the 2026 scores reflect actual 2024–2025 data rather than a snapshot that's already years stale by the time it's read. See the full methodology for the complete data pipeline.

The 10 freest states

The top of the table is dominated by the Mountain West and northern Plains — low-tax, light-regulation states that also tend toward permissive gun and drug laws. New Hampshire is the lone Northeastern entry, carried by the strongest economic-freedom and property-rights scores in the country.

Rank	State	Score	Grade
1	Utah	74.0	B
2	New Hampshire	73.7	B
3	Montana	72.1	B
4	North Dakota	70.8	B
5	Arizona	69.3	B-
6	South Dakota	69.0	B-
7	Missouri	66.2	B-
8	North Carolina	65.4	B-
9	Florida	64.6	B-
10	Indiana	64.2	B-

What unites them isn't any single policy — it's breadth. Utah doesn't top a single one of the four big amendment categories, but it scores respectably across all ten and avoids the bottom of any. That consistency is what wins the overall title; the index rewards states that are broadly free over states that are absolutist about one freedom and restrictive about the rest.

Why Utah, and not New Hampshire? New Hampshire leads both economic freedom (a perfect 10.0) and property rights (9.5) — and actually out-scores Utah on drug policy (6.5 vs. 5.5) and criminal justice (9.2 vs. 8.6) too. Utah wins anyway on the strength of a decisive lead in gun rights (9.4 vs. 6.5) and regulatory burden (7.1 vs. 3.9), which is enough to offset New Hampshire's edges elsewhere. The margin between them is just 0.3 points, so any adjustment to the category weights could flip their order. That's by design: you can re-weight the categories yourself and see how the ranking shifts.

Florida's position at #9 surprises some people. Florida is often cited as a "freedom state" in political conversation, but the index measures ten dimensions, not just taxes and guns. Florida's strong economic freedom (9.0) score is offset by more middling marks in 2nd Amendment (5.7), drug policy (5.5), and regulatory burden (2.4) — a reminder that the popular perception of a state's freedom level and its measured freedom level can diverge.

The 10 least free states

The bottom of the table is just as regional. Eight of the ten lowest-scoring states are coastal — the Northeast corridor (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts) plus the Pacific (Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington). These are typically high-tax, high-regulation states with restrictive firearm laws, which costs them across several categories at once.

Rank	State	Score	Grade
41	Washington	51.6	C
42	Illinois	50.3	C
43	Oregon	50.1	C
44	Kentucky	47.6	C-
45	New Jersey	45.5	C-
46	Massachusetts	44.1	D+
47	California	43.9	D+
48	Delaware	43.0	D+
49	New York	41.3	D
50	Hawaii	40.9	D

A low overall score doesn't mean a state is restrictive everywhere — and that's the most important thing the index reveals. Oregon, for example, ties for the best drug-policy score in the country (9.5) and posts the highest 1st Amendment score (8.0), yet finishes 43rd overall because it ranks near the bottom on taxes and regulatory burden.

Kentucky at #44 is one of just two inland states in the bottom ten, alongside Illinois. Despite solid gun rights (7.3) and a constitutional-carry law, Kentucky is pulled down by its criminal-justice score (2.2 — reflecting high incarceration rates) and weak economic-freedom marks (2.7). It's a clear case where strength in one freedom can't compensate for deep lows in others.

Why does New York rank 49th? New York scores a 0.0 on gun rights — the only state to receive that mark, driven by its combination of may-issue permitting, assault-weapon restrictions, and magazine-capacity limits. Combined with a near-bottom economic-freedom score (0.2) and heavy regulatory burden (0.6), the deficits are too deep for its stronger categories (criminal justice at 9.0, drug policy at 9.5) to recover from.

Is Texas a free state?

Given how often Texas appears in "freest state" conversations, its ranking at #22 with a score of 58.9 is one of the index's most asked-about results.

Texas dominates on some freedoms — economic freedom (9.4), religious liberty (8.5), and 2nd Amendment (8.4) — but falls dramatically on others. Its drug-policy score (3.0) reflects strict marijuana laws (possession of even small amounts remains a misdemeanor), its criminal-justice score (1.4) reflects one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, and its regulatory-burden score (1.2) is dragged down by extensive occupational-licensing requirements.

The overall picture: Texas is very free if you care most about taxes, guns, and business climate, and much less free if you care about drug policy, criminal justice reform, or regulatory simplicity. That's the trade-off the index is designed to surface — and it's why the interactive ranking tool lets you slide the weights to match what you actually care about. See Texas's full breakdown →

Economic freedom vs. personal freedom

One of the most common questions about state freedom rankings is: are "red states" or "blue states" more free? The answer depends entirely on which freedom you're measuring — and the index makes this visible by separating economic freedom from personal freedom.

Economic freedom (taxes, fiscal policy, business climate) clusters on the right side of the political spectrum. The top five states — New Hampshire (10.0), Tennessee (9.8), South Dakota (9.6), Texas (9.4), and Idaho (9.2) — are all Republican-governed. The bottom five — New Mexico (0.0), New York (0.2), Hawaii (0.4), California (0.6), and Oregon (0.8) — are all Democratic-governed.

Personal freedom — drug policy, criminal justice, privacy protections — is more mixed. Massachusetts has the nation's best criminal-justice score (10.0), Oregon ties for the lead on drug policy (9.5), and Maine leads on 4th Amendment protections (9.5). These are typically blue states excelling on liberties that red states often restrict.

The states that rank highest overall — like Utah and New Hampshire — tend to score above average on both dimensions rather than dominating one at the expense of the other. That's the structural insight: the index doesn't have a partisan lean, but it does reward breadth over ideological purity.

The best states for gun rights in 2026

Gun rights are the most polarized freedom in the index. The spread is a full 10.0 points — from Wyoming's perfect score to New York's 0.0. Here are the top states for 2nd Amendment freedom:

1. 1. Wyoming —
   10.0/10 (A+).
2. 2. Idaho —
   9.8/10 (A+).
3. 3. Montana —
   9.6/10 (A+).
4. 4. Utah —
   9.4/10 (A+).
5. 5. North Dakota —
   9.2/10 (A+).
6. 6. Arizona —
   9.0/10 (A+).
7. 7. South Dakota —
   8.8/10 (A).
8. 8. Tennessee —
   8.6/10 (A).
9. 9. Texas —
   8.4/10 (A-).
10. 10. Kansas —
    8.2/10 (A-).

See all 50 states ranked on gun rights

All ten have constitutional carry laws (permitless concealed carry for law-abiding adults). Wyoming also has no magazine-capacity limits, no waiting periods, and no red-flag law — the only state in the country with a clean sweep across every measured gun-law factor.

For a state-by-state reciprocity check, use the CCW Reciprocity Map to see where your carry permit is honored.

The best states for low taxes and economic freedom

If your primary concern is keeping more of what you earn, the economic-freedom category isolates the fiscal dimension. It's scored from the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of North America, which measures income-tax burden, sales-tax rates, property-tax burden, and the overall business tax climate.

1. 1. New Hampshire —
   10.0/10 (A+).
2. 2. Tennessee —
   9.8/10 (A+).
3. 3. South Dakota —
   9.6/10 (A+).
4. 4. Texas —
   9.4/10 (A+).
5. 5. Idaho —
   9.2/10 (A+).
6. 6. Florida —
   9.0/10 (A+).
7. 7. North Carolina —
   8.8/10 (A).
8. 8. Georgia —
   8.6/10 (A).
9. 9. North Dakota —
   8.4/10 (A-).
10. 10. Indiana —
    8.2/10 (A-).

See all 50 states ranked on economic freedom

Nine of the top ten are no-income-tax states or flat-tax states. The one exception is North Dakota, which levies a small income tax but compensates with very low property taxes and light regulation.

If you're considering a move for tax reasons, the Tax-Savings Calculator lets you plug in your income and compare your total state tax burden between any two states.

No state is free across the board

Here's the finding that surprises people most: no state finishes first, even counting ties, in more than three of the ten categories. Freedom, measured honestly, is a set of trade-offs — and almost every state that's a national leader on one freedom is a national laggard on another.

• Massachusetts has the best criminal-justice score in the country (a perfect 10.0, driven by the nation's lowest incarceration rate) — yet ranks 46th overall and posts one of the weakest 4th Amendment scores (1.5).
• Wyoming earns a perfect 10.0 on gun rights, the only flawless 2nd Amendment score in the index — but lands at just #13 overall, dragged down by middling marks elsewhere.
• Oregon tops the 1st Amendment category and ties for the lead on drug policy, but finishes 43rd overall once taxes and regulation are counted.
• Maine has the strongest 4th Amendment protections in the country (9.5) at #15 overall, while Idaho owns the lightest regulatory burden (a perfect 10.0) at #14.

New Hampshire is the closest thing to an all-rounder: it tops both economic freedom (a perfect 10.0) and property rights (9.5) while staying out of the cellar anywhere, which is how a Northeastern state cracks the top two.

The most divided freedoms

Some freedoms split the country in half; others barely vary. We can measure this directly as the spread — the gap between the highest- and lowest-scoring state in each category. The widest spreads mark the freedoms Americans most disagree about:

• Gun rights (2nd Amendment) — the single most polarized freedom. The spread runs the full 10 points, from Wyoming's perfect 10.0 to New York's 0.0.
• Economic freedom — also a full 10-point spread, from New Hampshire (10.0) to New Mexico (0.0).
• Criminal justice — another 10-point gap, from Massachusetts (10.0) to Mississippi (0.0).
• Regulatory burden — a 9.6-point spread, from Idaho (10.0) to California (0.4).

These four categories are where your zip code matters most. Move across the right state line and your tax bill, your ability to carry a firearm, or the number of occupational-licensing hoops you face can swing from the national best to the national worst.

Where states mostly agree

Not every freedom divides the country. The narrowest spreads in the index are in the 1st Amendment (just 2.5 points, from Oregon's 8.0 to Mississippi's 5.5) and religious liberty (4.5 points). On core speech and conscience protections, states cluster much closer together — partly because these protections are heavily backed by federal constitutional law that every state shares, which sets a floor no state falls far below.

Freedom and migration: where Americans are moving

The freedom scores aren't just academic — they track with where Americans are actually moving. Census Bureau migration data shows a consistent pattern: net domestic migration flows toward freer states and away from less-free ones.

Between 2022 and 2025, the five states with the highest net domestic in-migration were Texas (+347K), Florida (+318K), North Carolina (+142K), South Carolina (+112K), and Arizona (+103K). All five rank in the top 15 of the freedom index. Meanwhile, the biggest net out-migration states — California (-562K), New York (-483K), Illinois (-198K), New Jersey (-92K), and Massachusetts (-65K) — are all in the bottom 15.

Correlation isn't causation — cost of living, job markets, weather, and remote-work trends all play a role. But it's hard to look at 1.3 million Americans leaving the five least-free states while a similar number arrive in the five freest states and call it a coincidence. At minimum, the policies that make states score low on the freedom index (high taxes, heavy regulation, restrictive firearms laws) are the same policies people cite when they explain why they're leaving.

If you're considering a move and want to see how your priorities map to states, the Best State Quiz ranks all 50 states based on the freedoms you actually care about, and the Tax-Savings Calculator shows you exactly what a move would save (or cost) on your tax bill.

How the FreedomRankings index compares to Cato

The most well-known state freedom ranking is the Cato Institute's Freedom in the 50 States, and readers often ask how ours compares. The short answer: Cato's methodology is more academic (230+ variables, three high-level dimensions), while ours is more granular and more current.

	FreedomRankings 2026	Cato Freedom in the 50 States
Latest data	2024–2025 source editions	Data through Dec 2022 (published Nov 2023)
Categories	10 distinct freedom dimensions	3 dimensions (fiscal, regulatory, personal)
Sources	8 independent publishers + 2 editorial	230+ policy variables from academic research
Update cadence	Category-by-category as sources publish	One monolithic release every ~2 years
Interactive tools	Re-weight categories, compare states, quiz	Static PDF tables
Cost	Free, no sign-up	Free

Our #2 (New Hampshire) is Cato's #1 in their 2023 edition, and both indexes crown a low-tax Mountain-West-or-Plains-style state — but our #1, Utah, doesn't crack Cato's top five (New Hampshire, Florida, South Dakota, Nevada, and Arizona), so the two don't fully agree on a single freest state. The divergences appear at the category level: our ten-category framework surfaces trade-offs that Cato's three-dimension model aggregates away — like the fact that a state can lead on gun rights while lagging on criminal justice.

The biggest practical difference is timeliness. Cato's 2023 edition uses data current through December 2022, which means it predates the wave of constitutional-carry laws enacted in 2023–2024, the post-pandemic tax reforms in several states, and the latest school-choice expansions. Our scores reflect all of those because each category updates independently.

Where these scores come from

The index is deliberately not our opinion of which states are "good." Eight of the ten categories are anchored to independent, published datasets, and we update each one as its publisher releases a new edition:

• Economic freedom — the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of North America.
• Education choice — EdChoice's ABCs of School Choice.
• Criminal justice — the Vera Institute's incarceration data.
• 4th Amendment & property rights — the Institute for Justice's forfeiture and eminent-domain research.
• Drug policy — a composite of NORML, DISA, and NCSL cannabis-law trackers.
• Regulatory burden — the Mercatus Center's RegData.
• Gun rights — Guns & Ammo's "Best States for Gun Owners."

The two remaining categories — 1st Amendment and religious liberty — are editorial, as flagged above. Every score on the site carries a provenance label so you can see exactly which is which, and our full methodology walks through how the categories are weighted and combined.

How to use the index

The single overall ranking is a useful headline, but it's not how most people should actually use the index. If you only care about taxes, a state's gun score is noise; if you're a gun owner, Wyoming's #13 overall finish matters far less than its perfect 2nd Amendment score. That's the whole point of building it as ten separate categories rather than one black-box number.

Here's what we recommend:

1. Start with the interactive map to see where your state sits in the national picture.
2. Re-weight the categories to match your priorities — the ranking recomputes live.
3. Compare any two states head-to-head across all ten categories.
4. Look up your elected officials to see how your governor, senators, and representative score on freedom-related votes.
5. Take the Best State Quiz to find the best-fit state for your personal priorities.

Build your own ranking

Re-weight all ten freedoms by what matters to you and watch the 50-state ranking recompute live.

The numbers in this report reflect the index as of June 2026 and update automatically as each source publishes a new edition — so the live rankings and interactive map are always the current source of truth.

Full 50-state freedom rankings table

For reference, here is the complete ranking of all 50 states. Click any state to see its full category breakdown, elected officials, and recent legislation.

1. 1. Utah —
   74.0/10 (A+).
2. 2. New Hampshire —
   73.7/10 (A+).
3. 3. Montana —
   72.1/10 (A+).
4. 4. North Dakota —
   70.8/10 (A+).
5. 5. Arizona —
   69.3/10 (A+).
6. 6. South Dakota —
   69.0/10 (A+).
7. 7. Missouri —
   66.2/10 (A+).
8. 8. North Carolina —
   65.4/10 (A+).
9. 9. Florida —
   64.6/10 (A+).
10. 10. Indiana —
    64.2/10 (A+).
11. 11. Minnesota —
    63.6/10 (A+).
12. 12. Tennessee —
    62.9/10 (A+).
13. 13. Wyoming —
    62.8/10 (A+).
14. 14. Idaho —
    62.7/10 (A+).
15. 15. Maine —
    61.8/10 (A+).
16. 16. Vermont —
    61.3/10 (A+).
17. 17. Kansas —
    60.9/10 (A+).
18. 18. Nevada —
    60.7/10 (A+).
19. 19. Oklahoma —
    59.9/10 (A+).
20. 20. Alaska —
    59.7/10 (A+).
21. 21. West Virginia —
    59.2/10 (A+).
22. 22. Texas —
    58.9/10 (A+).
23. 23. Georgia —
    58.6/10 (A+).
24. 24. Michigan —
    57.9/10 (A+).
25. 25. Ohio —
    57.5/10 (A+).
26. 26. Alabama —
    57.5/10 (A+).
27. 27. Virginia —
    57.1/10 (A+).
28. 28. Maryland —
    56.4/10 (A+).
29. 29. South Carolina —
    56.3/10 (A+).
30. 30. New Mexico —
    56.3/10 (A+).
31. 31. Iowa —
    55.9/10 (A+).
32. 32. Wisconsin —
    55.7/10 (A+).
33. 33. Pennsylvania —
    55.6/10 (A+).
34. 34. Nebraska —
    55.0/10 (A+).
35. 35. Rhode Island —
    54.1/10 (A+).
36. 36. Colorado —
    53.7/10 (A+).
37. 37. Connecticut —
    53.5/10 (A+).
38. 38. Arkansas —
    52.8/10 (A+).
39. 39. Louisiana —
    52.5/10 (A+).
40. 40. Mississippi —
    52.2/10 (A+).
41. 41. Washington —
    51.6/10 (A+).
42. 42. Illinois —
    50.3/10 (A+).
43. 43. Oregon —
    50.1/10 (A+).
44. 44. Kentucky —
    47.6/10 (A+).
45. 45. New Jersey —
    45.5/10 (A+).
46. 46. Massachusetts —
    44.1/10 (A+).
47. 47. California —
    43.9/10 (A+).
48. 48. Delaware —
    43.0/10 (A+).
49. 49. New York —
    41.3/10 (A+).
50. 50. Hawaii —
    40.9/10 (A+).

Open the interactive ranking