The world’s most powerful passport is that of Singapore, while India’s falls significantly lower at 80th position, which it also shares with Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Tajikistan, according to the 2025 Henley Passport Index.
The index is by Henley & Partners, a global government advisory firm, which ranks all the world’s 199 passports according to the number of destinations they can access. Henley says this is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
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The Singaporean passport with access to 193 countries out of the total 227, is followed by the passports of Japan and South Korea in second position with access to 190 countries, and those of seven countries in the third position, which includes Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Spain with access to 189 countries.
Afghanistan stood at the bottom of the list at the 99th position with access to only 25 countries. Meanwhile, Syria with access to 27 countries came 98th place, and Iraq with access to 30 countries came 97th place.
Singapore and Japan broke away from a group of six countries that shared the top spot last year to secure gold and silver, respectively, according to Henley.
Though Japan is in the runner-up spot, it is still ahead of the rest after it regained visa-free access to neighboring China for the first time since the Covid lockdowns.
Finland and South Korea each lost a place over the past 12 months. They have access to 192 destinations with no prior visa required.
Afghanistan, having lost visa-free access to two more destinations over the last year, ended up creating the largest mobility gap in the index’s 19-year history.
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The UAE, one of the biggest climbers on the index since the last decade, was the first and only Arab state to ever make it into the upper echelons of the rankings. It secured access to an additional 72 destinations since 2015, climbing 32 places to 10th spot with visa-free access to 185 destinations worldwide.
Meanwhile, the biggest faller on the index was Venezuela, followed surprisingly by the US. This is between 2015 and 2025.
“Even before the advent of a second Trump presidency, American political trends had become notably inward-looking and isolationist,” said Annie Pforzheimer, Senior Associate at Washington thinktank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Even though US economic health relies heavily on immigration, tourism, and trade, voters during the 2024 presidential campaign were fed a narrative that America can (and should) stand alone.”
“Ultimately, if tariffs and deportations are the Trump administration’s default policy tools, not only will the US continue to decline on the mobility index on a comparative basis, but it will probably do so in absolute terms as well,” she added.
US nationals also constitute the single largest group who look for alternative residence and citizenship.
Meanwhile, China trails the UAE as one of the biggest climbers over the past decade, ascending from 94th place in 2015 to 60th in 2025. It also granted visa-free access to 29 more countries over the past year alone, and now sits in 80th position, granting visa-free entry to a total of 58 nations.
The research also shows that among the top 10 countries facing the highest Schengen visa rejection rates, six are in Africa. This includes Comoros with the worst 61.3% rejection rate, followed by Guinea-Bissau at 51%, and Ghana at 47.5%.
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“The very notion of citizenship and its birthright lottery needs a fundamental rethink as temperatures rise, natural disasters become more frequent and severe, displacing communities and rendering their environments uninhabitable,” said Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and the inventor of the passport index.
“Simultaneously, political instability and armed conflicts in various regions force countless people to flee their homes in search of safety and refuge,” he added.
