Hassle-free travel These are the most powerful passports in the world - and the weakest

A ranking lists passports according to the number of countries their holders can enter without first applying for a visa. Switzerland makes it into the top 5, but has to share the place.

Entering other countries is not equally easy with all passports. Some travelers have to apply for a visa before boarding a plane, while others have access to significantly more destinations without prior preparation.

Henley & Partners, a UK-based global citizenship and residency consultancy, has been publishing the Henley Passport Index for 19 years. It compares which passports make it easier to travel and which make it more difficult. The ranking is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The new edition shows massive changes: The gap between first and last place is wider than ever before.

With a Singapore passport, you can travel to 195 countries without a visa

Singapore sets a new record. Holders of a passport from the city state can travel to 195 out of 227 countries without a visa.

Just behind Singapore, five countries share second place: with a travel document from France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain, travelers can travel to 192 countries without a visa.

In third place are Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden. With a passport from these countries, you can travel to 191 countries without a visa.

Switzerland comes in fourth place

Switzerland is in fourth place. Together with the UK, Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand and Norway. Holders of these passports have visa-free access to 190 destinations.

The USA has been in a "persistent slump" for ten years, as stated in the press release accompanying the published report. Citizens of the United States can currently travel to 186 countries without a visa, which puts the USA in eighth place.

At the bottom of the list is Afghanistan. With the weakest passport in the world, people are only allowed to enter 26 countries without a visa. Although Afghanistan has been in last place for years, the country has set a new record with its current score. And the gap between first and last place has never been so wide.

"The general trend over the past two decades has been towards greater freedom of travel, with the average number of destinations that travelers can access without a visa almost doubling from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024," Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and inventor of the Passport Index concept, is quoted as saying in the press release.

He continues: "However, the global mobility gap between the top and bottom performers in the index is now wider than ever before." Top-ranked Singapore can reach 169 more destinations visa-free than Afghanistan.

How open countries are to travelers

The United Arab Emirates is said to have made a "meteoric" rise. Since the start of the index, the country could have added 152 destinations. Venezuela, on the other hand, has slipped the most - from 25th to 42nd place.

The index also compares the most open countries that receive the most travelers without a visa. The exciting thing: The most open countries are small island states or African countries. And they really do exist - countries that are completely open and grant access to all 198 passports in the world without a visa. There are 13 of them: Burundi, Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Maldives, Micronesia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Samoa, East Timor and Tuvalu.

Afghanistan, North Korea and Turkmenistan are the least open. In comparison, the USA allows 45 nationalities visa-free entry - even holders of such a passport can enter 186 destinations without having to apply for a visa in advance.

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