Power of US Passport Declines More Than Any G7 Country in History

The value of a United States passport has experienced the steepest recorded decline of any country in the history of tracking passport power.

The latest Global Citizens Solutions (GCS) ranking, which assesses 199 countries' passports based on factors including mobility access, investment attractiveness, and quality of life, shows that a U.S. passport has fallen from being the most powerful in the world to not even landing among the top 10 anymore. 

“The numbers are unambiguous. The United States held the highest composite score in the Global Passport Index’s history in 2021, ranked first in the world. By 2026 it sits twelfth, a five-year decline unmatched by any other G7 country," Dr. Laura Madrid, a lead researcher in the Global Intelligence Unit for Global Citizen Solutions, told TravelPulse.

The GPI assesses a country's passport strength across three key areas: 

• Mobility access: This category measures the number of countries reachable with a passport without a prior visa.
• Investment attractiveness: The criteria assessed in this category include a country's tax environment, innovation, and economic competitiveness.
• Quality of life: This includes healthcare, safety, climate, and social infrastructure. 
  
  

The composite score developed from these three factors "captures not just where holders can travel, but the full value of the country that stands behind their document," says the report.

The primary reason for the massive decline in value of a U.S. passport is mobility, the report explains. The U.S. passport's mobility rank has collapsed from 10th in 2021 to 41st in 2026, a startling 31-place decline. The plummeting mobility afforded by a U.S. passport can be partially attributed to Brazil's reinstatement of visa requirements for American citizens in April 2025.

"Mobility matters enormously and carries the highest weight (50%) amid all dimensions," explained Patricia Casaburi, CEO, Global Citizen Solutions. 

Casaburi added that the Global Passport Index captures something that conventional passport rankings cannot: the full picture of what a passport actually delivers. "Clients asking whether to pursue a second citizenship are also asking about investment environments, about healthcare, about where their children will be educated and so on. The GPI's three-pillar structure exists because those questions are inseparable," Casaburi said.

What the change means for U.S. citizens

The decline in power of the U.S. passport will have very real ramifications for American citizens. In practical terms, it means the passport in your pocket opens far fewer doors without advance paperwork than it did five years ago, explained Madrid.

"Destinations that were once straightforward, show up, get stamped, go, now require visas or pre-authorizations that didn’t exist before," Madrid said. "Brazil is the most prominent recent example, but the broader pattern is an erosion of the frictionless access that American travelers had come to take for granted across Latin American and Asian markets."

Beyond the immediate inconvenience, the data that Global Citizen Solutions tracks for its index reveals what Madrid calls "the prompting of a wider rethink."

"A Harris Poll survey of more than 6,000 Americans, conducted between August 2024 and February 2025, found that 42 percent had considered or were planning to relocate abroad, and travel freedom was among the motivations cited," said Madrid. "Among younger Americans the numbers were even higher. Americans are increasingly treating a second citizenship or residency not as an extravagance but as an insurance policy, a rational response to a passport whose trajectory, for the first time in living memory, is downward."

"Although passport indexes only assess passport strength for tourist visas, relocation and investment always start with scouting visits, so having visa-free access to fewer countries makes things more limited and difficult," Madrid added.

The world's 10 most powerful passports

Nine of the 10 highest-ranking passports in 2026 belong to European countries. Sweden, ranked number one, meaning its citizens have the most powerful passport in the world.

The remaining countries that made it into the top 10 most powerful passports include Switzerland, Finland, Germany,  the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Norway and Singapore.

Singapore, which ranks 10th, is the sole non-European country to land among the world's most powerful passports.

The passport scores for countries that landed among the top 10 span barely three points, which analysts say reflects "the high degree of convergence among wealthy democracies on mobility access, economic competitiveness, and quality of life."

With its continued lack of universal healthcare for citizens, prolific gun violence and recent repression of the democratic process and women's rights in the country, the United States no longer ranks among the top 10.

Sweden's continued dominance

It's important to note that Sweden's sustained dominance in the ranking is not driven by mobility alone, according to the report. 

In fact, Sweden's mobility rank is 14th, not first. The country's ascent from 6th place in 2021 to first from 2024 onwards was powered by what the report calls "consistent, reinforcing improvement across all three GPI dimensions, including a quality of life rank of 2nd and an investment climate rank of 9th globally."

"Sweden's dominance demonstrates that composite passport strength, at its most durable, reflects genuine excellence in governance and quality of life — not only mobility," the report stresses.

Also noteworthy, the gap between the world's strongest passport (Sweden) and weakest (Afghanistan) has widened every year since the GPI was launched in 2021.

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