Powerful to weak: The best and worst passports around the world ranked

 

For those who love to travel, passport is the key to their freedom. A powerful passport allows you to travel visa-free, to maximum countries, and is considered to be a prized possession for anyone with a wanderlust. The quarterly updation of  Henley Passport Index have come out,  which points out that global gap in travel freedoms has never been wider. The rankings have been made based on data from International Air Transport Association (IATA). The index has not considered temporary restrictions, into account, which is mainly due to Covid protocols.

 

The Henley Passport Index has been regularly monitoring the world’s most travel-friendly passports since 2006. It ranks 199 countries based on the number of destinations the passport holders can access without a prior visa. The Index is updated every quarter and claims to be ‘the only one of its kind’ based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Authority.

 

‘The latest results and research from the Henley Passport Index show how proliferating barriers to entry over the past 18 months of the pandemic have resulted in the widest global mobility gap in its 16-year history,’ said investment advisory firm Henley & Partners, creators of the index.

 

Japan and Singapore came out on top in the Index, which shows that these passport holders can head to 192 countries without waiting for a visa. Iraq and Afghanistan fell at the bottom of the table. Their citizens can only go to 28 and 26 countries, respectively, without filling out forms and applying for a visa.

 

Have a look at the best and worst passports across the world:-

 

 

Best passports as per the Henley Index

 

Japan, Singapore (192 destinations)

South Korea, Germany (190)

Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, Finland (189)

Denmark, Austria (188)

Ireland, Netherlands, France, Sweden, Portugal (187)

Belgium, New Zealand, Switzerland (186)

Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, Norway, United Kingdom, United States (185)

Canada, Australia (184)

Hungary (183)

Poland Lithuania, Slovakia (182)

 

Worst passports as per the Henley Index

 

109. North Korea (39 destinations)

110. Nepal and Palestinian territories (37)

111. Somalia (34)

112. Yemen (33)

113.Pakistan (31)

114. Syria (29)

115. Iraq (28)

116. Afghanistan (26)