The world’s most powerful passport for 2026

There are elite passports that are more influential than others when it comes to traveling from country to country without restrictions and shortening queues at border controls.

According to the latest report from the Henley Passport Index, the top three countries for passports are Asian countries, with Singapore in first place, followed by Japan and South Korea.

Singaporeans enjoy visa-free access to 192 of the 227 countries and territories tracked by the index, created by London-based global citizenship and residency advisory firm Henley & Partners and using exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association.

Japan and South Korea offer visa-free access to 188 destinations.

Henley counts countries with the same score as one spot in the league table, so five European countries (Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) share the third place spot. Everyone has visa-free access to 186 countries and territories.

Fourth place was also all-European, with Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway receiving a score of 185.

Fifth place was occupied by Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Arab Emirates with a score of 184.

The UAE is the best-performing country in the Henry Passport Index’s 20-year history, with 149 visa-free destinations added since 2006, rising 57 places in the rankings. The report said this was facilitated by the UAE’s “sustained diplomatic engagement and visa liberalization”.

In 6th place were Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Malta, New Zealand and Poland. In this quarterly update, Australia maintains its seventh place, alongside Latvia, Liechtenstein and the United Kingdom.

The UK, the country with the biggest year-on-year decline in the index, now has visa-free access to 182 destinations, eight fewer than 12 months ago.

Canada, Iceland and Lithuania are in 8th place with visa-free access to 181 destinations, while Malaysia is in 9th place with a score of 180.

After briefly dropping for the first time in late 2025, the United States is back in 10th place with a score of 179. But don’t open the champagne just yet. The US lost visa-free access to seven destinations in the past 12 months, with a year-on-year decline just behind the UK.

It also endured the third biggest drop in rankings in the past 20 years after Venezuela and Vanuatu, dropping six places from fourth to 10th.

Stability and reliability

“The power of the passport ultimately reflects political stability, diplomatic credibility and the ability to shape international rules,” says journalist Misha Glenny, director of the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences, in a report by Henley & Partners.

“As transatlantic relations become strained and domestic politics become more unstable, the erosion of migration rights in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom is a symptom of a deeper geopolitical realignment rather than a technological anomaly.”

At the other end of the index, at 101st place, Afghanistan remains locked at the bottom, with only 24 destinations accessible without a visa. Syria ranks 100th (26 destinations) and Iraq ranks 99th (29 destinations).

That’s a yawning mobility difference of 168 destinations between the top-ranked passport and the lowest-ranked passport.

“Over the past 20 years, global mobility has expanded significantly, but the benefits have been unevenly distributed,” said Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and creator of the Henley Passport Index.

“Today, passport privileges play a decisive role in shaping opportunity, security and economic participation, and rising average access masks the reality that mobility benefits are increasingly concentrated in the world’s most economically powerful and politically stable countries.”

Henley & Partners is one of the many companies that helps high-net-worth individuals around the world obtain dual citizenship. The company told CNN this month that by 2025 it would have helped customers from 91 nationalities, but Americans topped the list, accounting for 30% of its business.

However, several European countries have recently tightened requirements for citizenship by blood and for “golden passport” programs that grant citizenship in exchange for financial and/or real estate investment. In the United States, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio has proposed an “exclusive citizenship law” that would prohibit Americans from holding other citizenships.

The Henry List is one of several metrics created by financial companies to rank the world’s passports based on the access they provide to their citizens.

Arton Capital’s Passport Index takes into account passports from 193 United Nations member states and six territories: Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Kosovo, the Palestinian Territories, and the Vatican. Excludes territories annexed to other countries.

It is also updated in real time throughout the year and its data is collected by closely monitoring each government portal.

Arton’s Global Passport Power Rank 2026 places the United Arab Emirates in the top spot with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 179. In second place are Singapore and Spain, each with a score of 175.