Though Singapore is now in pole place, many European passport holders have spectacular freedom of motion.
Singapore has retained its place on the high of a rating of the world’s strongest passports, beforehand knocking Spain off the highest spot.
However there is a shocking new entry onto the rostrum that has taken second place as of December 2024.
Finland has soared up the rankings, rising from thirteenth place in 2023 and seventh place in the beginning of 2024, and has squeezed in simply forward of Spain.
VisaGuide.World’s rating is seen as probably the most dependable inside the journey trade, together with the Henley Passport Index.
The corporate evaluates 199 international locations and territories globally and bases its outcomes on elements together with visa-free entry, eVisas, and international mobility.
It then makes use of its personal Vacation spot Significance Rating (DSS) to assign a novel worth to every passport, though the DSS isn’t revealed within the rating.
With this technique, VisaGuide.World has discovered that the Singaporean passport is formally the strongest passport in all the world – with a rating of 91.27 out of a potential 100 as of December 2024.
Finland is in second place, with a rating of 90.88 is carefully adopted by Spain, whose rating is 90.87.
Subsequent up are the Danish and Italian passports, which are available with scores of 90.63 and 90.58 respectively.
It’s excellent news for Europe total, with just one different nation not on the continent, Japan, within the high 20. Japan takes eighth place, up from fifteenth in September final yr.
Malta, France, Austria and Hungary spherical out the highest 10 rating.
How does VisaGuide.World rank passports?
Launched 4 occasions a yr, VisaGuide.World’s passport rating examines the variety of locations passport holders can entry and not using a visa. Henley, normally considered the authority, takes an analogous strategy however has but to launch its rating for this quarter.
VisaGuide.World takes different elements into consideration, creating its DSS for every journey vacation spot.
That rating elements in the kind of entry coverage every nation enforces on a person passport. That encompasses visa-free entry, Digital Journey Authorisation (ETA), visa on arrival, e-Visas embassy permitted visas, passport-free journey or banned entry.
This implies the subsequent rating might look very totally different as Schengen international locations introduce the Entry/Exit System (EES) and ETIAS visa waiver for some non-EU international locations and the UK rolls out its ETA.
The DSS additionally assigns factors for the nation’s GDP, international energy and tourism growth.
Not all of its standards are thought of equal, although. Visa-free entry to a rustic with a excessive DSS earns a passport extra factors within the index than entry to a rustic with a low rating.
The truth that VisaGuide.World doesn’t specify the DSS of every nation signifies that different elements may additionally have an effect on the end result of the index.
Why has Finland risen within the passport rating?
Finland managed to bump Spain from the second spot because of passport holders having the ability to journey passport-free to a better variety of locations – 45 in comparison with 43.
All of the European international locations within the high 20 have a excessive variety of passport-free journey locations, in contrast to Singapore and Japan, because of the existence of the European Union and the Schengen zone.
For these residents, travelling with simply an ID card is feasible, making freedom of motion easy.
Spanish passport holders have additionally seen a discount within the locations they’ll journey to visa-free, from 160 international locations and territories to only 107.
It seems to be a drop throughout the board, although. Singaporean passport holders might beforehand go to 164 locations and not using a visa however as we speak, that solely applies to 160.
Whereas the rating doesn’t explicitly say why that is the case, it’s a regularly-changing determine resulting from shifting diplomatic ties, mutual visa insurance policies, and the political and financial stability of nations and territories globally.
