World’s most powerful passports list out; Canada in top 10

The list of the world’s most powerful passports is out and Canada is in the top 10.

The 2025 Henley Passport Index ranks the travel document for its ability to enter countries without a visa.

The index compares the visa-free access of 199 different passports to 227 travel destinations. If no visa is required, then a score with value of one is created for that passport. The same applies if you can obtain a visa on arrival, a visitor’s permit, or an electronic travel authority when entering the destination.

Singapore tops the 2025 list as its citizens are able to visit 195 countries out of 227 destinations without a visa.

Japan is runner-up with a score of 193.

France, Germany, Italy and Spain drop two places to third position, and are joined by Finland and South Korea with access to 192 destinations visa-free.

A seven-nation EU cohort, all with visa-free access to 191 destinations — Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden — share fourth place.

Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland and the U.K. come in fifth with 190 visa-free destinations.

The rest of the index’s top 10 is largely dominated by European countries, except for Australia in sixth place with 189 destinations, Canada in seventh place with 188 destinations and the U.S. in ninth place with 186 destinations.

Canada dropped three ranks over the past decade from fourth to its current seventh place.

The United Arab Emirates is one of the biggest climbers over the past decade having secured an additional 72 destinations since 2015. It is now in tenth place with visa-free access to 185 destinations worldwide.

Afghanistan remains at the bottom of the index, having lost visa-free access to a further two destinations over the past year.

China is also a big climber, ascending from 94th place in 2015 to 60th in 2025, with its visa-free score increasing by 40 destinations. China has also leapt up the Henley Openness Index, which ranks all 199 countries worldwide according to the number of nationalities they permit entry to without a prior visa.

In contrast, the U.S. is becoming more inward-looking and isolationist, said Annie Pforzheimer, senior associate at Washington thinktank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Ultimately, if tariffs and deportations are the Trump Administration’s default policy tools, not only will the U.S. continue to decline on the mobility index on a comparative basis, but it will probably do so in absolute terms as well,” Pforzheimer said. “This trend in tandem with China’s greater openness will likely give rise to Asia’s greater soft power dominance worldwide.”

U.S. nationals currently constitute the single largest cohort of applicants for alternative residence and citizenship, according to Henley & Partners.

Henley Passport Index creates the annual list based on official data from the International Air Transport Association.

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