The 2026 World’s Most Powerful Passport Rankings Are In. Where Does the U.S. Rank?

This article is regularly updated and was most recently updated on July 7, 2026. Danielle Hallock, Scott Hocker, Lyndsey Matthews, and Sophie Friedman contributed to its reporting.

In 2025, for the first time since the Henley Passport Index launched two-plus decades ago, the United States passport was not among the world’s 10 most powerful passports. This year, it’s back in the top 10—but just.

Henley’s report, which is updated monthly, ranks the world’s passports in order of the number of destinations their holders can access without obtaining a visa before arrival. Earlier this year, the United States crawled back to 10th place from 12th in 2025, giving Americans visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to 180 destinations.

Singapore is once again at the top of the index, with visa-free access to 192 of the 227 countries and territories tracked by the company. Japan, and South Korea tied for second (188 destinations).

Because multiple countries have the same score (11 European countries, for example, are tied at fourth with 186 destinations), there are 37 countries with more powerful passports than the United States. The U.S. passport’s power ranking has been in steady decline for more than a decade; in 2014, the United States was number one on the index (tied with Germany, the U.K., Finland, and Sweden).

The U.S. passport’s slide isn’t due to a single major policy change but rather a rapidly increasing erosion of reciprocal travel agreements. While countries like Singapore and South Korea have aggressively pursued new visa-waiver partnerships, the United States is making it more difficult and significantly more expensive to visit.

That lack of reciprocity has prompted nations to tighten access for U.S. citizens in return. In April 2025, for example, Brazil withdrew visa-free access to United States citizens (as well as to Australia and Canada) due to lack of reciprocity. Destinations including Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, and China have expanded visa-free privileges for other nationalities but excluded the United States. Meanwhile, the USA itself grants visa-free entrance to only 46 nationalities, placing it at 74 out of 199 on Henley’s openness ranking.

“The declining strength of the U.S. passport over the past decade is more than just a reshuffle in rankings—it signals a fundamental shift in global mobility and soft power dynamics,” said Christian H. Kaelin, chair of Henley & Partners, the London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm that created the list, in a statement. “Nations that embrace openness and cooperation are surging ahead, while those resting on past privilege are being left behind.”

Annie Pforzheimer, a career U.S. diplomat and senior fellow at the Center for New American Security in Washington, D.C., noted in the statement that the United States’ retreat is at least partially rooted in politics. “Even before a second Trump presidency, U.S. policy had turned inward,” she stated. “That isolationist mindset is now being reflected in America’s loss of passport power.”

Henley’s October 2025 report also noted that part of the U.S. passport’s slide can be traced to policy put in place by the Trump administration’s focus on border control. In December 2025, the U.S. suspended visa issuance to travelers from 12 nations, introduced higher visa fees (including a $250 “visa integrity fee” that began in October 2025), and tougher screening for travelers hoping to enter the country. Because passport strength relies heavily on reciprocity—basically, a “you let our citizens in, we’ll let yours in” system—that more closed approach has now led some countries to scale back visa-free access for Americans in response.

While the U.S. passport’s power has declined, that of the United Arab Emirates’ has made a remarkable jump, from 38th in 2016 to no. 2 as of July 2026.

There’s a wide gap between access offered at the top versus the bottom of the list. Afghanistan is currently last in the rankings, at 103rd place, since its passport holders get access to 23 destinations. Syria and Iraq ranked only slightly higher, with access to 26 and 29 destinations, respectively.

The world’s most powerful passports in 2026, according to Henley

According to the Henley Passport Index, the current most powerful passports in the world are:

• 1: Singapore (192 destinations)
• 2: South Korea, Japan, and United Arab Emirates (188 destinations)
• 3: Sweden (187 destinations)
• 4: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Spain (186 destinations)
• 5: Austria, Greece, Malta, Portugal, and Switzerland (185 destinations)
• 6: Hungary, Poland, and the United Kingdom (184 destinations)
• 7: Australia, Canada, Czechia, Latvia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Slovakia, and Slovenia (183 destinations)
• 8: Croatia and Estonia (182 destinations)
• 9: Lichtenstein and Lithuania (181 destinations)
• 10: Iceland and the United States (180 destinations)

The Henley & Partners list uses data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and ranks the passports of 199 countries against the ability of those passport holders to travel to 227 possible destinations (including territories annexed to other countries, like French Polynesia and the British Virgin Islands).

The world’s most powerful passports in 2026, according to the Passport Index by Arton

Henley & Partners isn’t the only company that indexes the strength of global passports. The Passport Index by Arton takes into account the same 199 passports as the Henley Index in its rankings, but it excludes territories annexed to other countries. This list also updates its rankings in real time and considers factors such as visa requirements and a country’s standard of living, determined by the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index. So Arton’s rankings are slightly different.

According to Arton Capital, here’s how 2026’s most powerful passports in the world rank:

• 1: United Arab Emirates (182 destinations)
• 2: France and Spain (175 destinations)
• 3: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, and Sweden (174 destinations)
• 4: Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Malta, Poland, and South Korea (173 destinations)
• 5: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (172 destinations)
• 6: Cyprus, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom (171 destinations)
• 7: Australia, Canada, Lichtenstein, and New Zealand (170 destinations)
• 8: Iceland (169 destinations)
• 9: Monaco and the United States (168 destinations)
• 10: Hong Kong (164 destinations)

To see the full rankings, visit henleypassportindex.com and passportindex.com.