These are the world’s most powerful passports for 2020

The UK passport drops to its lowest rank since The Henley Passport Index began 
Unsplash

The power of the UK passport has dropped to its lowest position in world rankings since The Henley Passport Index began in 2006.

Coming in at a joint eighth place, alongside the US, Belgium, Greece and Norway, the UK passport was previously ranked as the world’s most powerful in 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015. But it began to slide post-Brexit, to third in 2016, fourth in 2017, fifth in 2018 and sixth in 2019.

Prior to 2020, the lowest the UK passport had sat on the rankings was at sixth in 2008 and 2009.

Japan was listed as the world’s most powerful passport with visa-free access to 191 countries – comparatively the UK passport can access 184 countries visa-free.

The world’s most powerful passports 

According to The Henley Passport Index

1. Japan – access to 191 countries visa-free

2. Singapore – 190

3. Germany and South Korea – 189

4. Finland and Italy – 188

5. Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain – 187

6. France and Sweden – 186

7. Austria, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland – 185

8. Belgium, Greece, Norway, UK and US – 184

9. Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Malta and New Zealand – 183

10. Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia – 181

11. Iceland, Latvia and Slovenia – 180

12. Estonia – 179

13. Liechtenstein and Malaysia – 178

14. Poland – 176

15. Monaco – 175

16. Chile and Cyprus – 174

17. Romania – 172

18. Bulgaria and the UAE – 171

19. Argentina and Brazil – 170

20. Croatia and Hong Kong – 169

Singapore, who was last year ranked as the most powerful passport, dropped to second place this year with visa-free access to 190 destinations.

Germany and South Korea shared a joint third placing with access to 189 countries visa-free and Finland and Italy’s passports came in fourth.

Best value destinations for 2020 - in pictures

1/10

At the other end of the spectrum, Afghanistan’s passport was listed as the least powerful, with visa-free access to just 26 countries. Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen were also listed in the bottom five.

You can view the complete passport rankings at henleypassportindex.com

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in