In the event you maintain of a Singaporean passport, you are in luck.
The Southeast Asian nation’s citizenship doc formally ranks as probably the most highly effective on the earth, in line with the most recent Henley Passport Index, which was revealed Tuesday.
Based on the index, Singaporeans can journey to 192 out of 227 journey locations on the earth with out a visa.
In a “main shake-up,” Singapore beat out Japan, which has ranked No. 1 on the index for the final 5 years.
Japan fell behind Germany, Italy and Spain, all of whom are tied for second place, boasting 190 visa-free journey locations for his or her passport holders.
Japan is now in a tie for third on the index with six different nations: Austria, France, Finland, Luxembourg, South Korea and Sweden with 189 locations with out a visa.
Compared, the U.S. was fairly a bit decrease on the index, dropping down a spot from final yr to eighth place, tied with Lithuania, with 184 journey locations with out a visa.
The U.S. and the UK have each been on a downward pattern since 2014, when their passports ranked No. 1 on the earth.
During the last decade the U.S. has elevated the variety of locations that its residents can journey to with out visas by 12, Henley & Companions mentioned. Nonetheless, that marks the smallest improve for any nation within the index’s prime 10.
Based on Henley & Companions, a London-based international migration marketing consultant group, solely eight international locations have seen much less visa entry than that they had a decade in the past.
Greg Lindsay, a world strategist at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, mentioned America’s fall within the passport rating is an indicator that the U.S. and different Western international locations are “falling behind.”
“America’s relentless slide down the rankings — and unlikelihood of reclaiming the very best place any time quickly — is a warning to its neighbor Canada and the remainder of the Anglosphere as nicely,” Lindsay mentioned in an announcement.
The U.S. additionally ranks low on “openness,” solely permitting 44 different nationalities to go to visa-free.
The index discovered that the three weakest passports on the earth are Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, which might take you to 30, 29 and 27 locations, respectively.
Whereas many vacationers have been seeing extra freedom to journey visa-free over time, the hole between the highest and the underside of the rankings has additionally widened.
“The overall pattern over the historical past of the 18-year-old rating has been in the direction of better journey freedom, with the typical variety of locations vacationers are in a position to entry visa-free almost doubling from 58 in 2006 to 109 in 2023,” Henley & Companions mentioned. “Nonetheless, the worldwide mobility hole between these on the prime and backside of the index is now wider than it has ever been, with top-ranked Singapore in a position to entry 165 extra locations visa-free than Afghanistan.”
The index is predicated upon unique information from the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation, a significant journey data database.
