If you plan on seeing the world anytime soon (or even just annoying people on international flights), then you’re going to need a passport. But not all passports are created equal — some have more access to the world — and the people at the Henley Passport Index have made it their mission to rank all the passports of the world annually, based on the number of countries they can travel to visa-free.
Some sites rank food and candy, others rank global access. To each their own!
The Henley Passport Index uses data from the International Air Transport Association, which maintains the world’s largest database of travel information. Coming in the number one spot is Japan, who jumped up five spots from the previous year with access to 190 countries — 18 more than they had last year — making Japan the world’s most powerful passport. The United States fell a little to #5, sharing the spot with several other countries. Check out the top ten below.
1. Japan – 190 countries.
2. Singapore – 189 countries.
3. Germany, France, South Korea – 188 countries.
4. Denmark, Finland, Italy, Sweden, Spain – 187 countries.
5. Norway, United Kingdom, Austria, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, United States – 186 countries.
6. Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, Canada – 185 countries.
7. Australia, Greece, Malta – 183 countries.
8. New Zealand, Czech Republic – 182 countries.
9. Iceland – 181 countries.
10. Hungary, Slovenia, Malaysia – 180 countries.
If you’d like to see the complete list, run over the Henley Passport Index and scope out the whole thing. You can also see the methodology behind their ranking, as well as check your own individual global access and other passport-related statistics.
Maybe after this they’ll try ranking passport photos. If so, we think Prince has it in the bag.
