In a corona-free world, we’d have traveled to our heart’s content without a care in the world. While that may not be possible, it still doesn’t hurt to know how strong or otherwise our passports are. Helping us analyze this is the Henley Passport Index, an annual ranking of the world’s passports by international access, i.e., their ability to let the holder enter foreign countries without a visa.
According to the survey, the Japanese are currently in most luck as they can enter 191 countries without prior visa approval. Bagging second spot are holders of the Singapore passport, which allows them to enter 190 countries visa-free. Despite Brexit, the UK passport has also moved up one spot to the seventh position while the US passport has maintained its place.
Commenting on it, Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and the inventor of the passport index concept said, “Just a year ago all indications were that the rates of global mobility would continue to rise, that travel freedom would increase, and that holders of powerful passports would enjoy more access than ever before…The global lockdown negated these glowing projections, and as restrictions begin to lift, the results from the latest index are a reminder of what passport power really means in a world upended by the pandemic.”
On that note and similar to the 2020 list, here’s a peek at the 10 most powerful passports in the world for this year:
1. Japan—191
2. Singapore—190
3. Germany and South Korea—189
4. Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, and Spain—188
5. Austria and Denmark—187
6. France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden—186
7. Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States—185
8. Australia, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Malta—184
9. Canada—183
10. Hungary—182
[Via: CNN]
