It has been almost three years since my last Passport Power Rank post.
To quote that post:
every year it appears the world has changed drastically since the last.
Holds true.
Let’s see how visa-free travel has changed over the last three years.
Methodology
Each year Henley & Partners publishes a “Global Passport Index”, a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom that their citizens enjoy.
Points are awarded to countries for the number of destinations that offer visa-free travel to their citizens. e-Visas are treated the same as visas on arrival. Where the conditions for obtaining an e-visa are straightforward (fee, return ticket, hotel reservation), a visa-free point was assigned.
The ranking is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which maintains the world’s largest and most accurate database of travel information, and is enhanced by extensive in-house research.
There are 219 destination countries (territories) in total. The maximum attainable score is 218 (points are not assigned for a national traveling to their own country).
Analysis
Best passports for travel by country (2021)
| country | Visa Free Destinations 2021 | 2021 rank |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 191 | 1 |
| Singapore | 190 | 2 |
| Germany | 189 | 3 |
| Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of | 189 | 3 |
| Italy | 188 | 5 |
| Spain | 188 | 5 |
| Finland | 188 | 5 |
| Luxembourg | 188 | 5 |
| … | … | … |
| Yemen | 33 | 194 |
| Somalia | 33 | 194 |
| Pakistan | 32 | 196 |
| Syrian Arab Republic | 29 | 197 |
| Iraq | 28 | 198 |
| Afghanistan | 26 | 199 |
Looking at the map, it’s clear there is an East/West split in passport mobility.
Change in visa-free requirements by country (2019-2021)
| country | 2019-2021 % change | 2019-2021 point change |
|---|---|---|
| Poland | 5.23 | 9.00 |
| Qatar | 10.47 | 9.00 |
| Dominica | 5.93 | 8.00 |
| Saudi Arabia | 9.72 | 7.00 |
| United Arab Emirates | 3.59 | 6.00 |
| New Zealand | 2.78 | 5.00 |
| Holy See (Vatican City State) | 3.38 | 5.00 |
| Macao | 3.60 | 5.00 |
| Colombia | 4.03 | 5.00 |
| Kuwait | 5.49 | 5.00 |
| Thailand | 6.76 | 5.00 |
| China | 7.14 | 5.00 |
| Rwanda | 9.09 | 5.00 |
| Vietnam | 10.20 | 5.00 |
| … | … | … |
| Taiwan, Province of China | -0.68 | -1.00 |
| Honduras | -0.74 | -1.00 |
| El Salvador | -0.74 | -1.00 |
| Micronesia, Federated States of | -0.84 | -1.00 |
| Paraguay | -1.40 | -2.00 |
| Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of | -3.73 | -5.00 |
Qatar (86 – 95) and Poland (172 – 181) passports now have 9 extra visa-free travel destinations since 2019. Venezuelan (134 – 129) passport holders on the other hand have lost 5 visa-free travel destinations, owing largely to the ongoing political turmoil in the country.
Changes in global travel freedom (2019 – 2021)
369 new visa-free travel destinations in total became available to global travellers in 2021 since 2019.
Improvements
The results produced by Henley and Partners show aggregated visa data. For example, it does not show which countries have visa-free travel between them. It would be useful to track what countries are added or removed to visa-free travel lists to explain any changes.
tl;dr
The Japanese passport has the largest number of destinations its holders can travel to without a visa.
Get the data
Data sources + data used in this post.