US Drops To Historic Low In ‘Most Powerful Passports’ Ranking

The United States has slid off the Top 10 most powerful passports for the first time since Henley & Partners started publishing their index 20 years ago.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, where the U.S. appeared in rank seven last year when it enabled citizens to enter 188 countries without major restrictions, it has now dropped to rank 12, with visa-free entry to just 180.

This is a level of freedom also experienced by passport holders in Malaysia.

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The U.S. passport has fallen a long way in the past decade, having appeared in first place in 2014.

In the past year alone, several access changes drove the decline, including a loss of visa-free access to Brazil due to a lack of reciprocity. China then started to offer visa-free travel to several European nations, but notably excluded the U.S. from the change. This was followed by changes from Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, which further eroded the US score while boosting other passports. Newer changes included Somalia’s launch of a new eVisa system and Vietnam’s decision to exclude the U.S. from its latest visa-free additions.

Singapore once more is recognized as having the most powerful passport in the world, with its citizens able to visit 193 countries and territories without a prior visa, according to the Henley Passport Index. South Korea comes in second place, with its citizens able to visit 190 countries, followed by Japan with access to 189 countries, then Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland with access to 188.

At the other end of the scale, the situation is very different.

For passport holders in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, for example, travel is much more restrictive. The Afghan passport wields the least power of the ranking, with just 24 destinations permissible visa-free. The situation in Syria and Iraq isn’t much better, at 26 and 29 destinations, respectively.

Henley & Partners also created a list called the Henley Openness Index, showing how many other nationalities can enter a given country without a visa.

Despite the U.S. having access to 180 destinations visa-free, it only allows 46 other nationalities to enter without a visa, placing it in rank 77 out of 199 countries and territories.

The Henley Passport Index draws from data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA), including 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.