The index ranks how many destinations a passport holder can visit without needing a visa. Photo / 123rf

From first to 12th in a decade, US passport in decline

News
World

Author: Washington Post,
Publish Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2025, 1:41pm

The United States passport has fallen out of the top 10 most powerful passports globally for the first time in 20 years in the latest edition of the Henley Passport Index.

It ranks nations based on the number of destinations a traveller can visit without needing a visa.

The US ranking is on a steep downward trend, with the US passport now in 12th spot, tied with Malaysia, having already fallen from seventh place last year to 10th place in July.

A decade ago, the US passport topped the index.

Christian Kaelin, chairman of Henley and Partners and creator of the index, said in a news release yesterday that the declining strength of the US passport signalled a “fundamental shift in global mobility and soft power dynamics”.

“Nations that embrace openness and co-operation are surging ahead, while those resting on past privilege are being left behind,” Kaelin added.

The London-based firm, which offers consulting on residence and citizenship by investment, has compiled the rankings for about two decades, relying on data from the International Air Transport Association.

Singapore - with visa-free access to 193 of 227 destinations worldwide - tops the list, followed by South Korea, and Japan.

The US passport downgrade comes as the Trump Administration has overseen a drastic crackdown on immigration, initially focused on illegal migration but more recently expanding to include reviews of people who travel to the country for tourism, work or on student visas.

A number of countries have recently removed visa-free travel for US nationals, including Brazil in April due to the lack of reciprocity for Brazilians entering the US, Henley and Partners said.

Other countries, such as China and Vietnam, have left US travellers out of an expanding list of nationalities they allow to enter for tourism visa-free.

Reciprocity plays a role in a country’s rankings, Henley and Partners said, noting that the US allows only 46 nationalities some degree of visa-free entry but that its passport allows visa-free entry to 180 destinations.

Countries with a large disparity between the travel freedom they enjoy relative to their willingness to let other nationalities enter without a visa - which includes the US, but also countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have stagnated or declined in passport power in recent years, it said.

“Even before a second Trump presidency, US policy had turned inward. That isolationist mindset is now being reflected in America’s loss of passport power,” Annie Pforzheimer, a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in the news release.

Here is a condensed list of the most powerful passports, indicating the number of destinations passport holders can enter visa-free. The full list is available at henleyglobal.com/passport-index.