Six countries have earned the title of most powerful passports in 2024 – all of them allowing visa-free travel to 194 out of 227 destinations.
Four EU member states now share the top passport spot with Singapore and Japan in the quarterly Henley Passport Index. These are: Spain, Germany, France and Italy.
The two Asian countries dominated the index over the past five years.
In second place are countries such as South Korea, Finland and Sweden, with visa-free access to 193 destinations. Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Austria took third place. Great Britain has moved up two places to fourth place.
Australia and New Zealand took sixth place, according to Henley's rankings, while the United States retained its seventh spot.
The 19-year-old global passport ranking was conducted based on data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA), which ranks the world's passports based on the number of destinations their holders can access without prior visas.
The overall trend shown in the rankings is toward greater freedom to travel, with the average number of destinations travelers can travel to without a visa nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024, said Christian H. Kaelin, chairman from Henley & Partners.
However, he noted that the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index has become “larger than ever.”
For one thing, the highest-rated passports allow travel to 166 more destinations without a visa compared to Afghanistan, which only has access to 28 countries and is last in the rankings.
The United Arab Emirates was the index's “biggest riser” over the past decade, jumping from 55th in 2014 to 11th, the report said.
Other notable improvements in mobility include Ukraine and China, each rising two places in the past year. China now ranks 62nd in the index, while Ukraine now ranks 32nd.