The Henley Passport Index has revealed the most powerful passports for 2024. Covering 227 travel destinations worldwide, the index ranks 199 passports by the number of countries they enable people to enter without an existing visa.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the world's weakest passport is Afghanistan's, which offers visa-free travel to just 28 countries. At the other end of the scale, and for the first time in the history of the index, six passports are tied in being the gateway to 194 nations. Read on to discover the 25 most powerful groups of passports ranked in ascending order. Does yours make the list?
In joint 25th place are St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Vatican City. Although these are three of the smallest countries in the world – measuring 150 square miles (389 square kilometres), 101 square miles (261 square kilometres), and a tiny 0.19 square miles (0.49 square kilometres) respectively – they outweigh many larger nations when it comes to the power of their passports, offering visa-free access to 157 destinations.
The picture shows St Peter's Square in Vatican City, an independent enclave within Rome, Italy.
Residents of the Bahamas can enjoy white sand beaches, tropical weather – and existing visa-free entry to 158 countries. (According to Visa Free Countries, this figure includes 23 destinations where visas can be obtained after arrival).
Back in 2019 people from the Bahamas could only access 154 countries without a visa, meaning the Bahamian passport has grown in strength in the last five years.
Mexico is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, with 38 million visitors holidaying in the country in 2022.
On the world stage, the Latin American nation also holds weight thanks to the power of its passport; 161 countries around the world admit entry to Mexican passport holders without the arrangement of a prior visa.
Barbados is many people's idea of paradise. For those who dream of island life, it might seem incredible that anyone lucky enough to live in the country would ever want to leave.
But the Caribbean nation's 282,000 residents have plenty of choice when it comes to travelling overseas – their passport is the gateway to 165 countries, visa-free.
Citizens of Israel are welcome to travel to 166 countries without the existence of a prior visa. However, the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict is having an unquestionable effect on both inbound and outbound tourism within the nation.
According to Dr Eran Ketter, the head of the Tourism and Hospitality Management department at Israel's Kinneret College, European businesses – which have previously counted Israel as their second most important long-haul travel market – could lose billions of euros due to the loss of Israeli travellers as a direct result of the war.
The Bruneian passport offers travel without an existing visa to two more nations than Israel, bringing its total to 168 countries. Small but wealthy, thanks to its reserves of oil and gas, Brunei is home to around 450,000 people.
According to GlobalData, it saw approximately 330,000 international departures in 2022, a significant number considering the size of its population.
The European Principality of Andorra (pictured) and city-state Hong Kong are in joint 19th place, with their passports offering visa-free entry to 171 countries. While residents of Hong Kong can travel to various neighbouring nations with ease, they need a visa to enter China – despite officially being a special administrative region of the country.
San Marino, a microstate surrounded by Italy, bears the distinction of being the world's oldest republic and Europe's third smallest state.
Residents who call this historic country home can enjoy visa-free entry to 172 nations, meaning they have one of the world's strongest passports. However, their neighbours in Italy have a much longer list of visa-free destinations. More on that soon...
Owning a Brazilian passport entitles you to visa-free entry to 173 countries. Mexico and the United States are among the more surprising nations requiring a visa from Brazilian travellers.
As of 10 April this year, the government of Brazil will also require American travellers to apply for a visa before visiting the country, reinstating a requirement temporarily waived when Brazil hosted the Summer Olympics in 2016.
Beating next-door Brazil by one place, the Argentinian passport grants visa-free entry to 174 countries.
For travel within South America, Argentines don't even need their passports; they can simply use their National Identity Document (NID) to enter any country on the continent besides the Guyanas, Suriname, and various European dependencies.
The Chilean passport offers entry to 177 countries without an existing visa. Unsurprisingly, residents of Chile don't need a visa to travel to neighbouring nations Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama.
These fellow South American destinations also represent Chile's largest tourism market. According to data from Statista, more than 1.4 million of Chile's 1.9 million visitors in 2022 came from South America.
One of the smallest countries in Europe – as well as one of the richest in terms of GDP per capita – Monaco welcomes up to 20 million visitors a year, dwarfing the city-state's domestic population of around 36,000.
So-called Monégasque passports might be comparatively rare due to the country's small number of inhabitants, but they're among the most powerful in the world, offering visa-free entry to 178 destinations.
Three European countries are tied in 13th place in the rankings: Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania (pictured). Entitled to visa-free entry to 179 destinations, these countries are three of the newest additions to the European Union's Schengen Area, a border-free zone that enables residents to travel freely between member nations.
Jumping from 179 to 182 countries, passports issued by Cyprus, Liechtenstein, and Malaysia (pictured) are in joint 12th place.
Malaysia – which was the first country to introduce biometric passports back in March 1998 – has fluctuated in the rankings of late, starting 2023 in 14th place.
Passport Index, an alternative passport ranking system, actually lists the Emirati passport as the most powerful in the world. The Henley Passport Index has ranked it in a less spectacular 11th place.
But one thing's for certain: whatever data you look at, UAE passports are becoming rapidly more accepted and now command visa-free access to 183 countries. Over the last decade, a staggering 44 nations have extended visa-free entry to residents of the UAE, with Kosovo the latest country to do so.
Moving into the top 10, holders of Icelandic passports are entitled to enter 185 countries without an existing visa. According to statistics, 91% of the population of Iceland held a passport in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available.
By contrast, around 76% of Britons held a passport in the same year, while less than 50% of Americans are valid passport holders.
The Eastern European nations of Latvia, Slovakia (pictured), and Slovenia are tied in ninth place with 186 countries accessible to their passport holders. Unlike many other countries, it's compulsory to own a valid passport from the age of 15 in Latvia. Slovaks are entitled to hold two passports of the same kind at once, with one valid for five years, as opposed to the standard 10.
Meanwhile, Slovenians can travel between fellow former Yugoslav republics – including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia – using just an ID card.
Staying in Eastern Europe, Estonia (pictured) and Lithuania have the world's eighth most powerful passports, admitting residents to 187 countries without an existing visa.
Along with Latvia, the Baltic nations of Estonia and Lithuania were ruled by the Soviet Union until 1991 but still featured on America's official diplomatic list during that period. Since they had no sovereignty at home, national passports were solely issued by their consulates in New York.
Gone are the days when the UK and US were ranked as having the world's most powerful passports. America is now tied with Canada and Hungary in seventh place, with passport holders entitled to visa-free entry to 188 nations. (The picture shows the US border at Peace Arch, Canada).
As previously mentioned, less than 50% of Americans own a passport. While financial reasons and "a sense of national identity" have both been tipped as reasons, the sheer size and variation of the US means relatively few citizens feel the need to travel overseas.
Beating the US, Canada, and Hungary by one point, Australia, Czechia, New Zealand, and Poland boast the world's sixth most powerful passports, with access to 189 countries.
Although more Australians hold passports than Americans in terms of population percentage, it's still relatively few. According to the latest statistics from the Australian government, around 53% of residents owned a passport in 2022-2023. The picture shows the skyline of Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria.
Back in Europe, citizens of Greece (pictured), Malta, and Switzerland can enter 190 countries around the world without arranging a visa beforehand.
They're all popular tourist destinations in their own right, but Greece holds the crown. In 2019, the last year when tourism wasn't disrupted by the COVID pandemic, the country saw a staggering 34 million tourists descend on its shores.
Another contingent of European nations – Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, and the UK (pictured) – hold the world's fourth strongest passports, with access to 191 countries. The UK has slipped down the rankings over the last decade; as previously mentioned it tied in first place with the USA in 2014.
Brexit has disrupted the country's passport statistics still further. Between 2011 and 2021, the number of Brits holding multiple passports doubled, a trend fuelled by a rise in applications for additional passports as people with dual citizenship attempted to regain some of the rights they lost when Britain left the European Union.
In third place, Austria, Denmark, Ireland (pictured), and the Netherlands are entitled to visa-free entry to 192 countries worldwide.
The Irish government recently revealed it received over one million applications in 2023. The oldest applicant was 103 years old, while the youngest was just four weeks old.
In second place, residents of Finland, South Korea (pictured), and Sweden can enter 193 countries without an existing visa.
Around a decade ago, statistics showed that Swedish passports were among the most frequently bought on the black market, mainly because there was no limit at the time on the number of replacement passports a person could request. The country has since tightened up, and citizens can request no more than three passports within a five-year period.
It's official: residents of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and Spain have the world's most powerful passports, offering visa-free travel to 194 countries around the globe. Long-term frontrunner Japan (pictured) has regained top billing after being briefly displaced by Singapore in July 2023.
It's the first time in the history of the index that six nations have been tied in first place, with four European countries joining now-joint champions Japan and Singapore this year.
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