A passport is an important document that serves as personal identification when we travel to other countries.
The Henley passport index is an index that rates how “powerful” a passport is; the power in this context means how many countries can be accessed visa-free when one holds a passport from a specific country.
In the most recent update by Henley & Partners, the Singaporean passport has been dubbed the World’s Most Powerful passport as it allows its holders to access 192 countries.
For the past 5 years, Japan held on to the top spot and they were dethroned this time and fell into the 3rd spot.
Germany, Italy and Spain share the second place as they allow access to 190 countries and Austria, Finland, France, Japan, Luxembourg, South Korea and Sweden are all in third place as they allow access to 189 countries.
Our Malaysian passport is in 11th place with Liechtenstein and Cyprus as the passport allows access to 180 countries.
If you would like to know how other countries ranked, you can check the list out here.
The Henley passport index is published by a London-based immigration consultancy firm, Henley & Partners. The index is updated quarterly using data from the International Air Transport Association and includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.
Well, 11th place is not that bad but we certainly hope that we can access more countries soon without applying for a visa!
Also read: M’sians Will Need to Apply for Travel Permits to Enter These 30 European Countries Starting 2024