International ranking 2026: visa crunch nations suffer declines

View the full list of the world’s most international universities 2026

Universities in countries that have introduced restrictive immigration policies have seen their performance decline in this year’s Times Higher Education international ranking, even before the full impact of the changes is reflected in the data. 

The majority of ranked universities in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands dropped places in the 2026 table, which measures universities’ share of international staff, students, co-authored publications and reputation. All three of these countries have introduced policies designed to limit overseas student numbers. 

Australia suffered the most widespread decline in performance of all nations with at least four ranked universities; five of its six institutions (83 per cent) performed worse than last year. This was followed by Canada (75 per cent) and the Netherlands (60 per cent). In comparison, almost half of all US universities went downwards in the ranking.

In 2024, Canada announced a limit on the number of study visas it grants, among other restrictions; Australia unveiled overseas enrolment caps; and the Netherlands announced a number of measures aimed at reducing international student numbers. Although the international student data in the ranking relates to figures for the academic year ending in 2023, and therefore predates these policies, the international reputation data is based on survey responses up until January 2025. The three countries all experienced a drop in their international reputation scores this year.

“While causality cannot be definitively attributed, the timing does coincide with policy shifts affecting international student flows in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands,” said THE data scientist Cathy Tushabe.

Top 10 most international universities in the world 2026

Australia and Canada did not experience such falls in position in the latest edition of the World University Rankings, which is a much more comprehensive assessment of research-intensive universities than the international list, also taking into account their teaching and research environments, research quality and industry links. But Nigel Healey, a researcher and consultant in international higher education, warned that increasingly nationalistic immigration policies would inevitably adversely impact the world ranking of a country’s universities – a trend that is already visible among Dutch institutions.

“A less welcoming immigration regime directly and negatively impacts all the international outlook performance indicators: proportion of intentional students and staff, and international research collaborations. And because internationally co-authored papers typically have much higher citations than those locally co-authored, becoming more inward-looking may also harm indicators of research excellence like field-weighted citations,” he said.

The University of Toronto and Australian National University were the only institutions from Canada and Australia, respectively, not to slide downward in the international ranking this year. In the Netherlands, Wageningen University and Research maintained its position and the University of Amsterdam improved slightly.

Healey said the indirect effects of a restrictive immigration regime may be even more damaging for universities’ rankings because falling international enrolments are pushing many institutions into financial distress.

“Maintaining an international reputation and encouraging research excellence is increasingly difficult in such circumstances,” he said.

Despite also introducing more restrictive immigration policies, banning the vast majority of international students from bringing family members with them and more recently shortening the post-study visa from two years to 18 months, the UK performs relatively well this year, with only 41 per cent of its institutions going down. On average, its universities scored particularly highly for international students (98.9 out of 100) and staff (96.8).

One of those moving up was Imperial College London. Despite a dip in its international reputation score, it is now ranked fourth overall and is the top-ranked UK institution for the first time. It was closely followed by former UK front runner the University of Oxford (tied in fifth place) and the University of Cambridge (seventh).

“It is unsurprising that the three UK universities that remain in the top 10 most international list have large endowments and are more resilient to enrolment downturn because they attract elite foreign students,” Healey said.

Major Anglophone countries make up 52 of the top 100 spots in the list but the summit is once again dominated by Hong Kong. 

City University of Hong Kong topped the international ranking for the third year in a row, with two other institutions from the territory joining it on the podium in the ranking of 217 universities: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong.

With most of the inflow of international students coming from mainland China, Healey said Hong Kong was unique in internationalisation.

“In this sense, it could be argued the ‘international’ dimension of Hong Kong universities is both partially illusory and transitory,” he said. “A counterargument is that recruiting Chinese students from across a country with an area the size of continental Europe and a population more than two times larger makes Hong Kong universities at least as culturally diverse as any in Europe, despite the fact that continental Europe comprises 50 sovereign states.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

Methodology

The THE list of the world’s most international universities is based on data collected for the THE World University Rankings 2026. It is based on four equally weighted metrics:

• Proportion of international staff
• Proportion of international students
• Proportion of international co-authorship (the share of a university’s total research journal publications between 2020 and 2024 that have at least one international co-author, normalised to account for an institution’s subject mix)
• Proportion of international reputation (the share of votes from outside the home country that the institution achieved in THE’s annual Academic Reputation Survey, which asks leading scholars to name the world’s best universities for teaching and research in their fields).

Only institutions that were ranked in the World University Rankings 2026 and received at least 400 votes in the reputation survey were eligible for inclusion. To be included, universities also had to receive at least 200 domestic votes or at least 10 per cent of the available domestic votes. Once universities are ranked in the international list, they are only excluded if they do not meet the vote thresholds for two consecutive years.