If in theory a passport allows you to cross borders easily, in reality many countries apply restrictions to certain nationals, such as the mandatory obtaining of a visa before being able to travel. Therefore, some passports are more “powerful” than others. Like every year for twenty years, the specialized British company Henley & Partners publishes its ranking* of the passports that open the doors to the largest number of visa-free countries. In this little game, Asian countries once again have the lead.
Singapore offers the most powerful passport in the world, allowing visa-free access to 193 countries. The city-state is ahead of South Korea (190 destinations) and Japan (189 destinations). Behind, we see a European group with Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland), with 188 destinations accessible without visa.
France is fifth in a group made up of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands, whose passports allow entry to 187 countries. You need a visa to travel to Burma (Myanmar). The French passport ranked first in 2024, along with those of Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Spain. Last year, these passports opened the doors to 194 countries.
The Afghan passport is the weakest.
The big news in the ranking is the notable decrease in the power of the US passport, a decrease due to the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration and the mirror measures implemented by the affected countries. With 180 countries accessible, the US passport ranks 12th, while in 2024 it was in seventh place with 188 countries.
At the end of the ranking, it is the Afghan passport that allows the least visa-free travel, with 24 accessible countries, behind Syria (26 countries) and Iraq (29). The passport of North Korea, one of the most closed countries on the planet, allows visa-free travel to 38 countries.
Henley & Partners classifies passports according to the number of destinations to which their holders can access without a prior visa, with a visa on arrival or through electronic authorization (eTA/eVisitor) considered simple, valuing each destination one point.
*Ranking is based on my data from the IATA database. It classifies passports according to the number of destinations to which their holders can access without a prior visa, with a visa on arrival or through electronic authorization (eTA/eVisitor) considered simple, valuing each destination one point. Destinations that require a prior consular visa are not counted. The ranking is not weighted by the importance of the countries or the costs and delays associated with producing a passport. In case of a tie in the score, the passports share the same position in the ranking.
Source: BFM TV
