Major Shake-Up in World's Passport Power Ranking

Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners, says the general trend over the history of the 18-year-old ranking has been towards greater travel freedom, with the average number of destinations travelers are able to access visa-free nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 109 in 2023. "However, the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index is now wider than it has ever been, with top-ranked Singapore able to access 165 more destinations visa-free than Afghanistan."

Henley & Partners has conducted exclusive new research into the relationship between a country's openness to foreigners - how many nations it allows to cross its borders visa-free - and its own citizens' travel freedom. The new Henley Openness Index ranks all 199 countries worldwide according to the number of nationalities they permit entry to without a prior visa.

The Top 20 'most open' countries are all small island nations or African states, except for Cambodia. There are 12 countries that are completely open to all passports and four that don't allow anyone in visa-free. While the correlation between a high openness score and a high visa-free access score is not linear or straightforward, it is notable that Singapore and South Korea - highest climbers in the Top 10 over the past decade - boast relatively high degrees of openness compared to the 5 countries with the biggest disparity between the travel freedom they enjoy versus the visa-free access they provide to other nationalities. US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have all either slid down the ranking or remained in the same place as their openness stagnates.

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