By Maureen O’Hare, CNN
What makes a passport “powerful”? Effectively, a transparent measure is journey openness, the flexibility to slide into locations all over the world with a breezy wave of your passport, no visa required.
The Henley Passport Index is one in all a number of rankings measuring passport efficiency on this regard and, for the primary time in its 20-year historical past, the US passport has fallen out of its prime 10 listing altogether.
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Three Asian passports now command the highest of the leaderboard: Singapore, with visa-free entry to 193 locations worldwide; South Korea, with entry to 190; and Japan, with 189.
The USA, in the meantime, is down in twelfth place within the newest quarterly rating, tied with Malaysia.
Residents of each nations take pleasure in visa-free entry to 180 of the 227 international locations and territories tracked by the index, which was created by the London-based international citizenship and residence advisory agency Henley & Companions, and makes use of unique information from the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation. And since Henley counts a number of international locations with the identical rating as a single spot in its standings, there are literally 36 international locations that outrank the US on the listing.
‘Declining strength’
Again in 2014, the US held the No.1 spot, and in July this 12 months it was nonetheless clinging onto the highest 10. So what’s behind this additional descent?
It’s all the way down to a sequence of entry adjustments. In April, Brazil withdrew visa-free entry for residents from the US, Canada and Australia because of a scarcity of reciprocity. China has been introducing extra welcoming insurance policies, providing visa exemptions for dozens of principally European international locations, together with Germany and France, however the US hasn’t made the reduce.
Papua New Guinea and Myanmar have additionally tweaked their entry insurance policies, which boosted different passports’ rankings whereas additional eroding that of the US. The ultimate blow, the newest report from the index says, was Somalia’s launch of a brand new eVisa system and Vietnam’s exclusion of the US from its newest visa-free additions.
“The declining strength of the US passport over the past decade is more than just a reshuffle in rankings — it signals a fundamental shift in global mobility and soft power dynamics,” mentioned Christian H. Kaelin, chair of Henley & Companions, in an announcement. “Nations that embrace openness and cooperation are surging ahead, while those resting on past privilege are being left behind.”
China’s sharp ascent
The UK passport, which as soon as held the highest spot on the index in 2015, has additionally fallen to its lowest-ever place, dropping two locations since July, from sixth to eighth.
Throughout this previous decade of decline for the UK and the US, China has been making a pointy ascent on the rankings, climbing from 94th place in 2015 to sixty fourth in 2025, gaining visa-free entry to 37 extra locations in that point.
The Henley Passport Index report factors to China’s current strikes — granting visa-free entry to Russia, new agreements with the Gulf states, South America and several other European international locations — as examples of Beijing’s ongoing technique of elevated openness.
The UAE is one other one of many largest success tales on the index, having risen 34 locations prior to now decade, from No. 42 to eighth place.
On the reverse finish of the listing, at No. 106, Afghanistan stays locked in backside place, with visa-free entry to only 24 locations, two fewer than at the beginning of this 12 months. Syria is at No. 105 (with 26 locations) and Iraq is at No. 104 (with 29 locations).
That’s a yawning mobility hole of 169 locations between the top- and bottom-ranked passports.
‘Still highly desirable’
Commenting in July 2025 on the ailing efficiency of the US passport within the index, Richard Quest, CNN Enterprise editor-at-large, famous how journey openness was being affected by the introduction of latest restrictions similar to ESTAs within the European Union and within the UK.
“Can we make a linkage, if you will, to immigration policies of the Trump administration?” mentioned Quest. “Yes, you probably can, at some level, say there is a direct relation between one and the other.”
Nevertheless, he added, the passports on the prime of the leaderboard are nonetheless extremely fascinating with only a few restrictions total. “There are certainly citizenships that give greater access and availability to travel,” mentioned Quest, and there are rich people who search to acquire them by means of funding schemes, such because the $5 million “gold card” proposed by Trump in February. Henley & Companions advises its purchasers upon simply these sort of residence and citizenship alternatives.
“But for the average person, it’s not a jot of difference,” mentioned Quest. “You’ve got your passport, you’ve got where you are. Learn and live with it.”
The Henley listing is one in all a number of indexes created by monetary corporations to rank international passports in line with the entry they supply to their residents.
Arton Capital’s Passport Index takes into consideration the passports of 193 United Nations member international locations and 6 territories — Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong, Kosovo, the Palestinian territories and the Vatican. Territories annexed to different international locations are excluded.
It’s additionally up to date in real-time all year long and its information is gathered by shut monitoring of particular person governments’ portals.
Arton’s World Passport Energy Rank 2025 places the United Arab Emirates within the prime spot, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival rating of 179. Second place is held by Singapore and Spain, every with a rating of 175.
Probably the most highly effective passports for 2025
Singapore (193 locations)
South Korea (190)
Japan (189)
Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland (188)
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Eire, Netherlands (187)
Greece, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden (186)
Australia, Czech Republic, Malta, Poland (185)
Croatia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom (184)
Canada (183)
Latvia, Liechtenstein (182)
Iceland, Lithuania (181)
USA, Malaysia (180)
