Do you hold a powerful passport?

Passports are powerful tools that can provide some individuals with access to hundreds of different countries. the freedom to travel almost anywhere in the world for business or pleasure is a perk that is only really accessible to a few.

The Henley Passport Index

Which passports are the world’s most powerful is a question that the British investment migration consultancy firm Henley & Partners tries to answer each year with the group’s yearly passport index, ranking every country’s passport.

The 2025 ranking is out

The 2025 Henley Passport Index was published by the firm at the beginning of the year and it discovered that Asian passports were leading the way in terms of both power and access while European passports were a close running up.

How are passports accessed?

Running up the end of the passport power spectrum were troubled nations from across the world. The Henley Passport Index counts the power of a passport according to the number of other countries to which it provides visa-free access.

Looking at the best and worst

With all of the previous information in mind, let's take a look at who has the world’s most powerful passports in 2025. It’s possible you may be holding powerful passports, but it’s also possible you might have one of the world’s worst!

1st — Singapore

Vise-Free Access: 193

2nd — Japan/ South Korea

Vise-Free Access: 190

3rd — 7 European Countries

Passports from Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Spain all provide visa-free access to 189 countries.

4th — 7 more European Countries

Passports from Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden all provide visa-free access to 188 countries.

5th — Greece/ New Zealand/ Switzerland

Vise-Free Access: 187

6th — Australia/ The United Kingdom

Vise-Free Access: 186

Canada and the United States

Interestingly, Canada beat out the United States on the list. The US normally has a very powerful passport. However, it fell to the rank of 9th alongside Croatia, Latvia, Slovakia, and Slovenia with visa-free access to 183 countries.

Canada shared the spotlight

Canada was ranked 7th with 185 and shared the passport spotlight with 4 other nations: Czechia, Hungary, Malta, and Poland. Sandwiched between Canada and the US in 8th was Estonia and the United Arab Emirates with visa-free access to 184 countries.

10th — Iceland/ Lithuania

Vise-Free Access: 182

The world’s worst passports

The worst passports on the list come from many of the countries you would expect to have very limited visa-free access to other countries. However, some of the nations on the list might surprise you. The last place country was 99th overall!