You’ll often see rankings of the world’s most useful (or “powerful”) passports, in terms of the number of destinations that can be visited without a visa. The latest rankings have just been published, and the United States continues to slip…
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The world’s most & least powerful passports
The latest Henley Passport Index has been published, which is based on data from the International Air Transportation Association (IATA), regarding the number of destinations that can be visited by travelers without a visa being required prior to travel.
With the updated list, here are the world’s top 10 most useful passports (there are actually some ties, as you can tell, so it’s really the 34 most useful passports):
- Singapore (visa free entry to 193 countries)
- South Korea (visa free entry to 190 countries)
- Japan (visa free entry to 189 countries)
- Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Switzerland (visa free entry to 188 countries)
- Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, and Netherlands (visa free entry to 187 countries)
- Greece, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden (visa free entry to 186 countries)
- Australia, Czechia, Malta, and Poland (visa free entry to 185 countries)
- Croatia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom (visa free entry to 184 countries)
- Canada (visa free entry to 183 countries)
- Latvia and Liechtenstein (visa free entry to 182 countries)
Meanwhile here are the world’s 10 least useful passports (really the 17 least useful ones, due to ties):
- Afghanistan (visa free entry to 24 countries)
- Syria (visa free entry to 26 countries)
- Iraq (visa free entry to 29 countries)
- Yemen and Pakistan (visa free entry to 31 countries)
- Somalia (visa free entry to 33 countries)
- Nepal (visa free entry to 36 countries)
- North Korea and Bangladesh (visa free entry to 38 countries)
- Eritrea, Libya, and Palestine (visa free entry to 39 countries)
- Iran, Sri Lanka, and Sudan (visa free entry to 41 countries)
- Congo and South Sudan (visa free entry to 43 countries)
Where does the United States passport rank?
Some people might be surprised to see that the United States doesn’t rank on the list of the world’s 10 most powerful passports. It actually ranks in 12th place, tying with Malaysia, allowing visa free entry to 180 countries. That really makes it the world’s 37th(ish) most useful passport, given that the top 10 list actually consists of 34 different passports.
The United States has certainly fallen over the years in this regard, because back in 2014, the United States had the world’s most powerful passport. But now for the first time in decades, the United States doesn’t even rank in the top 10 when it comes to passport power.
What has contributed to that? In reality, it only takes policy changes in a couple of countries to trigger big ranking changes. Specifically, those with passports from the United States no longer get visa free access to Brazil (unlike nationals of many other countries), on reciprocity grounds. Furthermore, countries like Vietnam have increased the number of countries to which it offers visa-free entry (including many European Union countries), but the United States isn’t among them.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if the United States stays off the top 10 list in the long term, especially given how widely the principle of reciprocity is used for travel requirements, and the United States doesn’t exactly make visa free travel easy for nationals of many countries.
Bottom line
Updated rankings have been published regarding the most and least useful passports in the world. For the first time, the United States has fallen off the top 10 list, which isn’t too surprising, given the visa requirements the United States has for nationals of other countries. Meanwhile North Korea ranks higher than most might expect, though I guess the challenge there is whether you can get out of the country, rather than whether you can get into another country.
Are there any passport rankings that surprise you?
These rankings are meaningless. Obviously an EU passport beats Singapore's for ability to move freely. Australian and New Zealand passports would also get a bump here, as would a lot of Commonwealth passports.
This list is silly. If you rank the power of a passport based on the ease of crossing a border (number of questions asked etc) and/or the ease of getting a visa/ETA this list would be very different.
I wish I could get their raw dataset to figure out what the best 2-passport combo would be. I imagine perhaps something like Malaysia and Germany, a friendly Asian Muslim country with a friendly European country.
Malaysia does not allow dual citizenship.
Of course the US passport has fallen further down the rankings. The country is a hotbed of fascism, violence, racism, and conducts itself on the global stage in the most offensive, embarrassing manner possible.
Another interesting twist is dual (or multiple) citizenship, and deciding which passport to use where, depending on visa-free, or reduced fees, etc. Likewise, when you use one to enter, remember to use the same one to exit, or... 'problems.'
Except for those countries that restrict you to one citizenship, such as China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and many in Africa and Asia, like Botswana, Indonesia, and Iran.
Yet the most important factor is being able to seamlessly enter the US, making the US passport still more relevant.
Maybe... like, for people who live in the USA, have family or business here, or want to visit (tourism), but for the rest of the world, they don't care all that much, especially these days.
These ranking fail because they just consider one measure, visas. How about electronic authorizations, especially those that are not free? How about propensity of the government to help if you are kidnapped? Being a neutral country doesn't always help. Just look at the Thai people kidnapped in Gaza.
Costs is another factor. Australia has a very expensive passport. The U.S. is slightly behind Australia. Taiwan's passport fees are low.
You aren't kidding about Australia... AUD 412, which is about USD 267.
Big bikkies.
This is a serious question folks and not a wind-up …. Is it true that less than 25% of U.S. Citizens are passport holders?
Recently, those numbers have gone up... you know, because... *gestures broadly* 'current events'
Per the US State Department: "...reaching an all-time high of nearly 170 million in early 2025." (Though, they also cite the cause may also be people seeking an alternative to REAL ID.)
The issue is more closely related to REAL ID rather than "current events". Despite the fairly easy ability to enter and stay in the US without permission, the same doesn't hold true anywhere else in the world. So, even with your passport if you decide to migrate there without permission from the US the odds of you being deported back to the US are extremely high.
It's somewhere in the realm of 50% now, up from around 30% in 2008. As mentioned, partially because Real ID, and I think also partially because Caribbean, New England, and Alaska cruises have all become more accessible and most of them require a passport. The number of Americans traveling abroad has also greatly increased, especially with the comparative strength of the US dollar and US economy post-COVID through to early 2025.
As a native of a third world country, I can categorically say that it absolutely sucks not to have a first world country passport.
It is tricky to use the number of visa-free countries as the single standard for "powerful".
Yeah, nothing to do with power just ease of travel. If I were to rank passports by how powerful they are, I would rank Switzerland #1. The Swiss hold the world’s money in their banks and nobody is going to mess with them and risk losing access to their money.
I always think this ranking is misleading/meaningless without weighting by number of visitors or GDP of each visa free country. It’s silly to rank US and Malaysia the same.
An Irish passport is uniquely powerful due to its high ranking on visa-free access to vacation destinations but, more importantly, granting right of abode across the EU *and* UK
The U.S. may have fallen from the top 10 but it's still infinitely better than when I had my passport from one of these "weaker" countries. The amount of paperwork, money, and effort it took to apply to a single-entry visa to so many of these "stronger" countries was absurd. Ironically, as you mentioned - US citizens need a visa for Brazil and Vietnam which would've been visa-free from my previous citizenship lol!
Just renewed my US passport at $130.00 via snail mail. Turn around time was just short of 4 weeks.
Photo page incased in "hard plastic" with a second color photo on the signature page above.
For what I paid, was hoping the US ranking would be a bit better =;-)
I renewed mine online, and it surprisingly only took about ~2 weeks from the time I applied until I received it in the mail.
If your passport can take you to: Schengen, UK, Mainland China, Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand
It’s plenty powerful. Visa application to everywhere else is comparatively easy/painless. Malaysian passport holders are afforded access to all the above except Canada & U.S., while Brunei passport holders can visit the U.S. with ESTA but not Brazil/much of Latin America
And it’s not just Vietnam expanding visa-free access to Europeans. It’s PR China, too. Netherlands, France, Germany,...
If your passport can take you to: Schengen, UK, Mainland China, Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand
It’s plenty powerful. Visa application to everywhere else is comparatively easy/painless. Malaysian passport holders are afforded access to all the above except Canada & U.S., while Brunei passport holders can visit the U.S. with ESTA but not Brazil/much of Latin America
And it’s not just Vietnam expanding visa-free access to Europeans. It’s PR China, too. Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and more