US removed from list of world's 10 most powerful passports for first time

2025-10-15 07:46:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

What makes a passport “powerful”? Well, one obvious measure is openness to travel, the ability to easily travel to destinations around the world with a simple wave of the passport, without the need for a visa.

The Henley Passport Index is a platform that measures the power of passports in this regard, and for the first time in its 20-year history, the American passport has completely fallen out of the top 10 passports list.

Three Asian passports now top the rankings: Singapore, with visa-free access to 193 destinations worldwide; South Korea, with access to 190; and Japan, with 189.

Meanwhile, the United States has fallen to 12th place in the latest quarterly rankings, tied with Malaysia.

Citizens of both nations enjoy visa-free access to 180 of the 227 countries and territories tracked by the index, which was created by London-based global citizenship and residency advisory firm Henley & Partners and uses exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association. And because Henley counts multiple countries with the same score as a single country in its rankings, there are actually 36 countries that surpass the US on the list.

'Falling power'

In 2014, the US held the top spot, and in July of this year it was still climbing into the top 10. So what's behind this further decline?

This involves a series of changes in access. In April, Brazil removed visa-free access for citizens from the US, Canada and Australia due to a lack of reciprocity. China has introduced more accommodating policies, offering visa waivers to dozens of mainly European countries, including Germany and France, but the US has not passed this period.

Papua New Guinea and Myanmar have also changed their entry policies, which have boosted the rankings of other passports while further eroding that of the US. The final blow, according to the latest report from the index, was the launch of a new eVisa system by Somalia and the US’s exclusion of Vietnam from the latest visa-free expansion.

The Arton Global Passport Rankings for 2025 places the United Arab Emirates in first place, with a score of 179 for visa-free/visa-on-arrival. Singapore and Spain are in second place, each with a score of 175.

The most powerful passports for 2025

Singapore (193 destinations)

South Korea (190)

Japan (189)

Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland (188)

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands (187)

Greece, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden (186)

Australia, Czech Republic, Malta, Poland (185)

Croatia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom (184)

Canada (183)

Latvia, Liechtenstein (182)

Iceland, Lithuania (181)