It made the top five.
The Irish passport is one of the most powerful passports in the world, polling in fifth place in a new ranking.
The Henley Passport Index grades all the world’s passports by the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
Based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association, which maintains the world’s largest and most accurate database of travel information, each passport is scored on the total number of destinations that the holder can access visa-free.
For each travel destination, if no visa is required, then a score of one is allocated for that passport.
This also applies if passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival, a visitor’s permit or an electronic travel authority upon entry.
Going by this metric, Ireland received a visa-free score of 187 in the most recent edition of the index, coming in joint fifth place with France, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Taking the top spot with 192 were Japan and Singapore, followed by Germany and South Korea in second place with 190.
Polled third were the countries Finland, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain at 189, while in fourth were Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden with 188.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan is at the bottom of the list because its citizens are only able to access 26 destinations visa-free.
Ireland has been consistently placed in the top 10 of the Henley Passport Index over the last decade.
A full breakdown of the latest data can be found here.
Main image via Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie
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