What is the
quality that makes any given nation’s passport powerful? Typically, it’s the
number of international destinations the holder is allowed to enter without
first obtaining a visa in advance.
And, while Americans
might assume the United States would be at the top of that list, we’d be wrong.
What might also surprise people is that the U.S. passport has been steadily
sliding down the list of most powerful passports over the past decade.
In its latest
ranking, published this week, Henley and Partners—a leading global firm specializing
in residence and citizenship by investment—revealed the country with the
strongest passport in the world for 2024.
And this year, the
nation that leads the world in terms of passport power is among the smallest
out there—the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore,
whose passport holders have access to 195 destinations out of 227 around the
world without having to obtain a prior visa.
Five countries
share the second spot in the rankings: France,
Germany,
Italy,
Japan
and Spain,
all of which can cross into 192 destinations without a prior visa. Coming up
behind in third place are Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands,
South Korea and Sweden, which can enter 191 world destinations sans visa. In
fourth, with 190 destinations available to them visa-free, are the U.K., Belgium,
Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.
Where is the U.S.
passport in all this, you ask? It is now in eighth spot, down from the number
one position, which it held jointly with the U.K. in 2014. These days, a U.S.
passport will get you into 186 destinations visa-free.
A related report,
the Henley
Openness Index—which ranks 199 countries based on the number of
nationalities they allow visa-free entry—is key to understanding how a country’s
openness to foreigners influences its spot on the Henley Passport
Index.
It suggests that
the U.S.’ lack of reciprocity diminishes the strength of its passport. In fact,
the U.S. ranks 78th on the Henley Openness Index, allowing only 45
other nationalities to cross its borders without a prior visa while it enjoys
visa-free access to 186 countries and territories. This makes the gap between
its score on the Passport Index and Openness index the second-largest
worldwide, behind Australia and slightly ahead of Canada.
The firm noted
that the top five countries with the biggest disparity between the travel
freedom they enjoy versus the visa-free access they provide to other
nationalities have either remained in the same position or dropped down in the
Henley Passport Index rankings.
Henley and
Partners’ research is based on official data from the International Air Transport
Association (IATA) with historical data going back 19 years. When assessing
where a passport ranks on the global mobility spectrum, the Henley Passport
Index is the standard reference tool.
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