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The Henley Passport Index measures the power of each country’s passports annually. The index uses historical data to rank all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. Singapore leads the world in 2025 with access to 195 travel destinations out of 227 around the world without visas.
The report has minimal changes year over year with Japan and Singapore normally jockeying for the lead. In 2024, there was a six-way tie with Singapore, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain all sitting with access to 194 countries. Japan dropped to number two with 193 destinations this year. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain are tied at number three with Finland and South Korea joining them at a count of 192. Fourth place goes to seven EU nations: Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. These passport holders can access 191 destinations. Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, and the UK all tied for fifth place (190 destinations visa free). The rest of the top 10 winners are all within Europe except for Australia (6th place with 189), Canada (7th place with 188), and the United States in ninth place (186 destinations).
Only 22 of the world’s 199 passports have dropped down the list of the Henley Passport Index ranking over the past decade. The US has seen the second-biggest decline between 2015 and 2025 after only Venezuela. It plummeted seven places from second to its current ninth position during this decade. The British passport was top of the index in 2015, but now sits in fifth place. The number five spot on the losers’ list goes Canada. It dropped three ranks over the past decade from fourth to its current seventh place.
China has seen the largest growth between 2015 and 2025. It was ranked 94th then and has climbed to take the 60th spot. Chinese nationals saw 40 destinations added during this time. China also leapt up the Henley Openness Index, which ranks all 199 countries worldwide by the number of nationalities they allow to enter without a prior visa. China granted visa-free access to an additional 29 countries over the past year alone. It now sits in 80th position and grants visa-free entry to 58 nations. The United States ranks below it in the 84th spot and allows only 46 other countries access without a visa.
Afghanistan remains at the bottom of the list. Its visa-free score is only 24 (a further decline this year). This is the lowest recorded score of any nation in the history of this index.
One other interesting note: US nationals are currently the single largest group seeking alternative residences and citizenship, accounting for a staggering 21% of all investment migration program applications received by Henley & Partners in 2024. CEO, Dr. Juerg Steffen, says the firm has more American clients than the next four biggest nationalities (Turkish, Filipino, Indian, and Brits) combined.
According to Dr. Steffen:
Faced with unprecedented volatility, investors and wealthy families are adopting a strategy of geopolitical arbitrage to acquire additional residence and/or citizenship options to hedge against jurisdictional risk and leverage the differences in legal, economic, political, and social conditions across countries to optimize their personal, financial, and lifestyle outcomes.”
Anthony’s Take: Visa-free travel makes trips so much easier. While the US has fallen in the past decade, a US passport is still a powerful document that opens many doors to the world.
(Image Credits: Rawpixel, Mike Enerio, and Lydia Matzal.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
