Investment Friendliness Index 2026: Key Official Rankings and Reform Takeaways

What happened?

On 17 July 2026, PIB reported that NITI Aayog released the Investment Friendliness Index (IFI), a structured framework to compare how well states and union territories support investment.

Key facts

• The official PIB release says the IFI was announced after the July 2024 Governing Council direction for an Investment-Friendly Charter and the Union Budget 2025–26 push for such an index.
• The index covers all 28 states and 8 union territories.
• It evaluates jurisdictions across eight pillars: infrastructure, business climate, resources, government policy, regulatory ease, institutional environment, financial health, and environmental resilience.
• PIB says the framework uses 84 indicators, combining secondary data with investor perception inputs.
• States and UTs are classified into four categories: Top Performers, Frontrunners, Emerging Performers, and Aspiring States.
• According to the release, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Odisha emerged as the top performers overall.
• Within peer groups, Uttarakhand led among hilly and north-eastern states, while Goa led among city states and union territories.

Three labels, three questions

Overall rank compares the complete ranking set. Peer-group rank compares the defined group. A performance category follows the source’s score thresholds; it is not simply another name for a rank.

Hypothetical exercise: jurisdiction X is first in its peer group and twelfth overall. Are those statements inconsistent? No: the comparison sets differ. Neither statement establishes its score category without the relevant score and thresholds.

Threshold check: using the release’s categories, an illustrative score of 44 falls in Emerging Performers, not Frontrunners. The score is invented for this exercise and is not attributed to a real state or UT.

When using real ranks, record whether they are overall or peer-group ranks and identify the dated report. Use the framework companion to explain how the measures were assembled.

Source metadata

Authority: Press Information Bureau / NITI Aayog
Publication date: 17 July 2026
Official source: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2285847&lang=1&reg=48

Useful excerpt

Official source highlight: the index is designed not only to rank states, but also to push reform, peer learning, and stronger state-level investment ecosystems.