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\n Published on
\n 22\/07\/2025 – 12:55 GMT+2\n <\/p>\n
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Europe dominates the latest global passport rankings, but not all countries are rising with the tide.<\/p>\n
The Henley Passport Index, which uses exclusive data sourced from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to rank the world\u2019s passports by how many destinations they allow visa-free access to, has just released its 2025 update. European countries once again dominate the top tier.<\/p>\n
Singapore claimed the top spot for the second year in a row, offering visa-free access to 193 destinations. Japan<\/strong><\/a> and South Korea follow in joint second with 190 destinations. After that, it\u2019s a litany of European countries<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Seven EU nations \u2013 Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain \u2013 now share third place globally, with visa-free access to 189 destinations. Close behind are Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden, all ranked fourth with access to 188 destinations.<\/p>\n Greece, Switzerland and New Zealand<\/strong><\/a> round out the top five.<\/p>\n Two European countries lag behind the leaders<\/p>\n In total, 28 European countries appear in the global top 10, buoyed by Schengen Area access and strong diplomatic relationships.<\/p>\n But Europe\u2019s strength is not uniform. Belarus ranks lowest on the continent at 62nd, just behind Kosovo<\/strong><\/a> at 61st. Offering visa-free access to 81 and 82 destinations, respectively, both fall well below the global average of 109.<\/p>\n While Kosovo has made limited diplomatic progress in recent years, both remain largely excluded from wider visa liberalisation efforts, especially in Western countries.<\/p>\n The UK and US keep losing ground<\/p>\n Some of the biggest shifts in the rankings involve Western countries that were former leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n The UK<\/strong><\/a>, which topped the index in 2015, has dropped another place to sixth, with visa-free access to 186 destinations. The US, which ranked first in 2014, is now 10th, with access to 182 destinations \u2013 its lowest-ever position in the index\u2019s 20-year history.<\/p>\n Henley & Partners, the Chicago-based citizenship by investment<\/strong><\/a> consultancy behind the rankings, attributes the decline to increasingly restrictive entry policies in both countries. In contrast, countries such as the United Arab Emirates<\/strong><\/a> (now 8th), Saudi Arabia (54th) and China (60th) are rising fast by expanding visa-waiver agreements and easing entry requirements<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAccess is earned – and must be maintained,\u201d said Christian Kaelin, the Switzerland-born chairman of Henley & Partners.<\/p>\n \u201cThose that invest in diplomatic relationships tend to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on 22\/07\/2025 – 12:55 GMT+2 ADVERTISEMENT Europe dominates the latest global passport rankings, but not all countries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,83142,42048,183,1238,1236],"class_list":{"0":"post-282320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-golden-visa","12":"tag-passport","13":"tag-travel","14":"tag-travel-visa","15":"tag-visa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}