The best kind of bragging rights imaginable – world travel bragging rights.
That’s how that works, right?
What’s a passport for if you can’t lord it over other countries as a physical statement of superiority?
That, and using it to traverse the globe, of course.
Global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners has officially revealed that Japan wields the single most powerful passport in the entire world, allowing its citizens visa-free or visa-on-arrival travel to 190 destinations.
Ireland, in comparison, places joint sixth on the list with access to 185 destinations.
Given the whole Brexit kerfuffle, you might anticipate the UK to be in a spot of bother, but they currently outrank the Emerald Isle in fifth spot alongside the United States with access to 186 destinations.
Still, that’s a far cry from the number one spot the UK enjoyed in 2015 and you can’t imagine they’ll be reclaiming the crown in the near future.
The Henley Passport Index represents “the most rigorous and sophisticated measure of global access”, according to… the Henley Passport Index.
Fair enough, they seem to know what they’re talking about.
Criteria on the list include which countries you can access with which type of visa, how your passport has changed over the past 13 years, how it compares to other such passports, why it has the level of access that it does and which additional passports would improve your global movements.
The top 10 looks like this:
10. Hungary, Slovenia, Malaysia (180)
9. Iceland (181)
8. New Zealand, Czech Republic (182)
7. Australia, Greece, Malta (183)
6. Ireland, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland (185)
5. UK, USA, Austria, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal (186)
4. Denmark, Finland, Italy, Sweden, Spain (187)
3. Germany, France, South Korea (188)
2. Singapore (189)
1. Japan (190)
You can read the full and highly comprehensive breakdown right here.
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