The Henley Passport Index is an annual global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom allowed by those countries' ordinary passports for their citizens. The index was created by Christian Kälin and launched in 2005 as Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index. Its name was changed to Henley Passport Index in January 2018. The index is updated on a quarterly basis to reflect changes in global visa policies. The index annually ranks 199 passports of the world by the number of countries that their holders can travel to without requiring a visa. The number of countries that a specific passport can access becomes its visa-free "score". The data is obtained from the International Air Transport Association (IATA)'s Timatic documentation requirements database.
Definition of the index The Henley Passport index ranks passports according to the number of destinations that can be reached using a particular country's ordinary passport without the need of a prior visa ("visa-free"). The survey ranks 199 passports against 227 destination countries, territories, and micro-states. The IATA maintains a database of travel information worldwide and all destinations that are in the IATA database are considered by the index. However, because not all territories issue passports, there are far fewer passports ranked than destinations about which queries are made.
Method To determine the score for each country or territory, its passport is checked against the IATA Timatic database in several steps:
Each of the 199 passports on the list is checked against all 227 possible travel destinations for which travel restriction information exists in the IATA database. The score is updated throughout the year. Each query must satisfy certain conditions: passport is issued in the country of nationality passport holder is an adult citizen of the country that issued the passport and a lone traveller, not part of a tourist group entry is sought for tourism or business the stay is a minimum of three days Further conditions: queries are made only for holders of normal passports, not diplomatic, service, emergency, or temporary passports; and other travel documents are disregarded passport holders need not meet any complex requirements for entry (for example, possessing a government-issued letter, translations, or empty pages) passport holders have all necessary vaccinations and certificates passport holders are arriving at and departing from the same airport passport holders are seeking a short stay rather than a transit the port of entry is a major city or capital, in cases where this is required requirements by the destination country or territory regarding a particular length of validity of passports are disregarded passport holders meet all basic requirements for entry (for example, holding a hotel reservation or having proof of sufficient funds or return tickets) advance passenger information and advance approval to board are not considered to be a visa requirement or travel restriction, neither is the requirement to pay airport tax If no visa is required for passport holders from a particular country or territory to enter the destination, then that passport scores 1. The passport also scores 1 if a visa on arrival, a visitor's permit, or an automatically approved electronic travel authority (ETA) can be obtained because they do not require manual pre-departure government approval, perhaps because of specific visa-waiver programs in place. Where visas are needed, or where passport holders must get manually government-approved electronic visas (e-Visas) before departure, a score of 0 is given. If passport holders must get government approval before leaving in order to obtain a visa on arrival, this also scores 0. The score for each passport is then totalled by adding up its scores for all destinations. The index ignores temporary restrictions or airspace closures. It considers mobility data based on national GDPs and the percentage of global wealth that the country's passport could provide access to.
Rankings
2026 Henley Passport Index According to 2026 Henley Passport Index, Singapore retains the top spot as the world's most powerful passport, giving visa-free access to 192 out of the 227 destinations worldwide to its holders. Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates are second in the ranking. The UAE passport has moved up the ranking by eight places making it the first in the Middle East. The third spot is taken by Sweden. The Afghan passport is ranked last in the index making it the least powerful passport, which gives its holders visa-free access to 23 countries. The South African passport is ranked in the top 50 after a decade, rising by 10% between 2024 and 2025. Seychelles and Mauritius retained their positions in the index as Africa’s highest ranked passports. Seychelles, which was ranked at 23rd offers visa-free access to 155 destinations and Mauritius ranked at 26 gives access to 148 destinations.
2024 Henley Passport Index As of 16 July 2024, the Singaporean passport offers holders visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a total of 195 countries and territories, followed by the Japanese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish passports offer holders visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a total of 193 countries followed by the Austrian, Finnish, Irish, Luxembourgish, Dutch, South Korean and Swedish passports, each offering 192 visa-free or visa-on-arrival countries and territories to its holders. These rankings were subsequently followed by the Belgian, Danish, New Zealand, Norwegian, Swiss, and British passports, each offering visa-free or visa-on-arrival travel to 191 countries and territories. While the 2024 Henley Passport Index shows a worldwide improvement in access to visa-free travel, the gap between the top and the bottom ranked countries has widened. Asian countries like Japan and Singapore have dominated the top position in the Index for the last five years. The Afghan passport has once again been labelled by the index as the least powerful passport in the world, with its nationals only able to visit 28 destinations visa-free. This was followed by the Syrian passport at 29 destinations, the Iraqi passport at 31 destinations and the Pakistani and Yemeni passports at 34 destinations. Among African countries, the Somali passport is the weakest passport according to the index.
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