Henley Passport Index recrowns Singapore with the world’s most powerful passport

Singapore has reclaimed its ranking as the country with the world’s most powerful passport. The city-state has set a new record score, with its citizens now enjoying visa-free access to 195 travel destinations out of 227 around the world.

France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain are in joint second place, each with visa-free access to 192 destinations, closely followed by Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden, which have visa-free access to 191 destinations. 

The latest Henley Passport Index – based on official data from the International Air Transport Association – reveals that His Majesty’s passport still opens many doors, maintaining its fourth-place position alongside Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, despite a slight decline in its visa-free score to 190 destinations.

The US continues its downward trend, falling to eighth place with visa-free access to only 186 countries. 

Notably, both the UK and the US held the top spot in 2014.

The UAE has made a remarkable ascent in the index, breaking into the top 10 for the first time. Since the index’s inception in 2006, the UAE has added 152 visa-free destinations, propelling it from 62nd to 9th place.

Henley & Partners CEO, Dr Juerg Steffen, says the country’s meteoric ascent is “the result of deliberate and concerted efforts by the Emirati government to position the UAE as a global hub for business, tourism and investment”. 

“Our research has consistently shown a strong correlation between a country’s visa-free score and its economic prosperity. Nations with higher visa-free scores tend to enjoy greater GDP per capita, increased foreign direct investment, and more robust international trade relationships.”

China and Ukraine have both experienced significant passport power boosts over the past decade, ranking among the top 10 countries for passport strength improvement. China has climbed 24 places to 59th, while Ukraine has advanced 23 places to 30th. Russia has dropped seven places to 45th.

At the very bottom of the list, Afghanistan’s citizens can only visit 26 countries without a visa — the lowest score ever recorded in the 19-year history of the index.

South Africa languishes in 47th position, with visa-free access to 106 destinations, including most of Latin America, Indonesia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and less enticing destinations such as Iran and Russia.

It no longer enjoys visa-free access to Ireland, which announced earlier this month that South Africans now need to apply for a visa.

In Africa, holders of the ‘green mamba’ also enjoy easier (and even visa-free) access to Egypt, Algeria, Kenya and Mauritius, although the latest passport index says Schengen Area visas from African applicants are disproportionately rejected, says Prof Mehari Taddele Maru from the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute, and Johns Hopkins University in Italy.

Comparing Schengen visa rejection rates for African applicants to those from other regions, Maru said Africa has the highest denial rate despite having the lowest application rate per capita. 

Almost a third of African visa applications to the Schengen area are rejected — a rejection rate that is 12.5% higher than the global average, three times higher than the highest rejection rate, and 10 times higher than for Americans.

Between 2014 and 2022, there was a dramatic decrease in global Schengen visa applications, falling from 16.7 million to 7.6 million, a nearly 55% decline, while rejection rates have skyrocketed. While Africa also saw a reduction of 7.7% in applications during this period, the continent’s overall number remained relatively stable compared to the global trend.

Globally, rejections surged from 5% to 17.5% in 2022, while Africa experienced an even more dramatic increase, from 18% to almost 33% over the same period.

Africa dominates the list of countries with the highest rejection rates, with seven African nations in the top 10. 



Algeria, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria lead, with rejection rates exceeding 45%. In stark contrast, applicants from the US, Canada and the UK face rejection rates of less than 4%. Russia’s rate is around 10%.



Although Seychelles, Mauritius and several countries in Latin America and Asia are exempt from Schengen visa requirements, some African countries – like South Africa, Botswana and Namibia – have relatively low rejection rates.

Most rejections are based on “reasonable doubts about the visa applicants’ intention to return home”, although Henley & Partners says the possibility of illegal overstay alone cannot account for the significantly higher rejection rates among African applicants. 

Malta, Sweden, Belgium, France, Norway, Estonia, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Slovenia have the highest levels of Schengen visa denials. 

In 2022, Malta, which had a 35.5% visa application rejection rate, had just 750 third-country nationals living in the country without proper authorisation. 

But Africa doesn’t seem to want its own people either: the continent’s wealthiest person, Nigerian-born Aliko Dangote, has famously complained that he faces more hurdles crossing the continent than Europeans. 

“As an investor, as someone who wants to make Africa great, I have to apply for 35 different visas on my passport,” Dangote told the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali.

The African Development Bank’s 2023 Africa Visa Openness Report says that African travellers must obtain visas to visit 55% of other African countries. Only four countries — Benin, Gambia, Rwanda and Seychelles — offer visa-free access to all Africans.

Commenting on the report, Henley & Partners chairman, Dr Christian Kaelin, said the general trend over the past two decades has been towards greater travel freedom, with the global number of destinations travellers are able to access visa-free nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024. 

“However, the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index is now wider than it has ever been.” DM