How many countries can you travel with only your passport, without the need for a visa? For the average traveler, this could be a question in the National Geographic trivial or competition. For many wealthy businessmen around the world, however, it can be an indicator of financial security, and an incentive to obtain a second or third passport at prices that can even reach seven-digit numbers.
Visa-free travel is the cornerstone of the Henley Passport index, which includes the world's most powerful passports, created by London-based global citizenship company Henley & Partners. Since 2006, the company has been monitoring which of the world's passports provide the most "free" and which the least in countries around the world, based solely on data provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
In general, travel "freedom" has expanded worldwide in recent years. In 2006, the average international traveler could visit 57 countries without having to issue a visa. Today, that number has climbed to 107. However, this apparent "freedom" is not exactly what it seems, because it obscures what Henley & Partners describes as "growing inequality between the North and the South, worldwide."
Henley's latest ranking shows that when it comes to travel "freedom", people can be divided into privileged and non-privileged. At the top of the privileged countries are Japan and Singapore, whose passports provide visa-free entry to 192 destinations.
On the other hand, fewer "borders" open the passports of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, whose citizens can enter without a visa to less than 30 countries, while countries such as Cameroon, Angola and Laos provide entry to 50 countries - less than half the average.
Cyprus and Greece
As for Cyprus, it is in 14th place, with the Cypriot passport securing entry, without a visa, to 176 countries while Greece is ranked 7th, along with Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic and Malta (185 countries).
The passports that further increased their validity
Between 2006 and 2022, Ukraine added 109 additional destinations, while the United Arab Emirates provided access to an additional 140 destinations. During the same period, the United States added 56 destinations, while Canada and Mexico added 60 and 61 destinations, respectively. In many countries in Africa and the Middle East, their global mobility index has been outpaced by the rest of the world.
The growing gap between richer and poorer countries in terms of international mobility has worsened with the advent of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in late November. The discovery was accompanied by a series of punitive sanctions against mainly African states, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as "travel apartheid". Last month, the United States lifted travel restrictions on African countries.
USA
As for the US, this year's ranking can in no way be considered a "return to the top". The American passport, which had started to lose its glory before the pandemic broke out, slipped from the first place of the list to the eighth. This year, it climbed a little higher and is in sixth place, as it "opens" the borders of a total of 186 countries without a visa. But given that several countries are "equal", in fact a total of 15 countries have to show "stronger" passports than the US.
The top fifteen passports of 2022:
192 countries - Japan, Singapore
190 countries - Germany, South Korea
189 countries - Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain
188 countries - Austria, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden
187 countries - Ireland, Portugal
186 countries - Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, UK, USA
185 countries - Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Greece, Malta
183 countries - Hungary, Poland
182 countries - Lithuania, Slovakia
181 countries - Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia
180 countries - Iceland
179 countries - Malaysia
178 countries - Liechtenstein
176 countries - Cyprus
175 countries - United Arab Emirates
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