United States' Passport Ranked as World's Most Powerful

Image: Passport and verified travel documents. (photo by Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon)
Image: Passport and verified travel documents. (photo by Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon)
Donald Wood
by Donald Wood
Last updated: 1:26 PM ET, Mon December 13, 2021

A new study revealed the United States has the world's most powerful passport, based on how many countries it allows citizens to access, investment opportunities and quality of life indicators.

Immigration investment consultancy firm Global Citizen Solutions released its Global Passport Index on Monday, scoring the passports through a quantitative scoring system across several criteria and categories.

The U.S. emerged as the world's strongest passport with a total score of 96.4, ranking fourth in the investment index, 10th in the enhanced mobility index and 23rd in the quality-of-life index.

As for the rest of the top 10 global passports, the other nations who made the list (in order) include Germany, Canada, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Finland, Norway and New Zealand.

"The United States offers investors a developed and diversified economic market as well as access to the most advanced and lucrative consumer market in the world," Global Citizen Solutions Managing Director Patricia Casaburi said. "Given the popularity of investment programs in return for a green card, the U.S. has consistently laid out opportunities for economic success."

"This is one of the key reasons why the U.S. placed fourth on the Investment Index is because the country offers many attractive visa solutions for expats looking to invest in America, such as the EB5 Visa program and the E2 Visa program," Casaburi continued. "The U.S. Business Visa also allows citizens to spend 90 days in the country for business ventures."

Global Citizen Solutions intended for each of the three indexes to be evaluated on their own so they could be ranked for individual country statistics. The final list was based on data from various institutions and organizations, including The World Bank, the World Economic Forum and The Sustainable Development Report.

In October, Henley & Partners released its own passport index, which revealed the widest-ever gap in travel freedom, as many of the countries with the most powerful travel documents have enacted the most stringent COVID-19-related travel restrictions.


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