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. In 2026, the United States crawled back to 10th place from 12th in 2025, giving Americans visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to 179 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 (Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, for example, are tied at third with 186 destinations), there are actually 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. And over the past six months alone, destinations including Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, and China expanded visa-free privileges for other nationalities but excluded the United States from those lists. Meanwhile, the USA itself grants visa-free entrance to just 46 nationalities, placing it at 78 out of 100 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 focusing 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.
The United States wasn’t alone in its drop. The United Kingdom’s passport (in the top spot in 2014 and 2015) has dropped two places since the October 2025 edition of the report, from 5th to 7th. In other countries, the opposite effect is taking place; a decade ago, a United Arab Emirates passport was ranked 38th; this year, it’s sitting at 5th.
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 101st place, since its passport holders get access to 24 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 and Japan (188 destinations)
- 3: Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland (186 destinations)
- 4: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and the Netherlands (185 destinations)
- 5: Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the UAE (184 destinations)
- 6: Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Malta, Poland, and New Zealand (183 destinations)
- 7: Australia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, and the United Kingdom (182 destinations)
- 8: Canada, Iceland, Lithuania (181 destinations)
- 9: Malaysia (180 destinations)
- 10: United States (179 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, 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 2025’s most powerful passports in the world rank:
- 1: United Arab Emirates (179 destinations)
- 2: Spain and Singapore (174 destinations)
- 3: Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Austria, Malaysia, Norway, Ireland, South Korea, and Japan (173 destinations)
- 4: Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, and Latvia (172 destinations)
- 5: Romania, Czechia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and New Zealand (171 destinations)
- 6: Cyprus, Lichtenstein, and Australia (170 destinations)
- 7: Iceland (169 destinations)
- 8: Canada and the United Kingdom (168 destinations)
- 9: Monaco and the United States (167 destinations)
- 10: Hong Kong (166 destinations)
To see the full rankings, visit henleypassportindex.com and passportindex.com.
This article is regularly updated and was most recently published on January 15, 2026. Danielle Hallock, Scott Hocker, Lyndsey Matthews, and Sophie Friedman contributed to its reporting.
