The World's Best Passports In 2023 Were Ranked & Here's How The List Changed From Last Year
Oh the places you'll go!
Japanese passport. Right: Passports from around the world.
The world’s most powerful passports for 2023 were just ranked, and some of the top countries continue to hold on to their spots.
The Henley Passport Index ranks each passport by the number of countries you can enter without a visa, and it really pays off to have a passport from the top 10 — especially since they're so good at retaining their ranking.
The top-tier list is pretty similar to the early 2022 ranking, so you don't have to worry that yours will suddenly fall down the list.
The Henley Passport Index creates the list based on data obtained by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the world’s largest travel information database, as reported by Forbes.
According to the Henley Passport Index, the strongest passport in the world is Japan’s, a position the country has held for five straight years.
Despite the turbulent past few years the world has experienced, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Japanese passport has held its ground and remains the strongest out of the 199 indexed.
Japanese passport holders can travel to 193 countries without needing a visa.
Following as a close second, we have South Korea and Singapore. Passport holders from those countries can travel to 192 countries visa-free, according to Henley's research. Singapore was tied with Japan for top spot in 2021, but Japan gained access to one more country to move up in the ranks.
Similar to last year’s ranking, Germany and Spain followed in third place with a score of 190.
The list includes many ties in the top 10, with over two dozen countries sharing that space. The United States ranked No. 7 on the list alongside Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, while Canada shared the eighth spot with Australia, Greece and Malta.
Consistent with last year’s ranking is the country on the other end of the spectrum — the world’s least powerful passport.
Just like in 2022, Afghanistan remains the country with the weakest passport in the world, ranking 109 on the list with an access score of 27.
Here is the ranking of the top 10 passports for 2023:
- Japan (193 countries)
- South Korea and Singapore (192 countries)
- Germany and Spain (190 countries)
- Finland, Italy and Luxembourg (189 countries)
- Austria, Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden (188 countries)
- France, Ireland, Portugal and the U.K. (187 countries)
- Belgium, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the U.S. (186 countries)
- Australia, Canada, Greece and Malta (185 countries)
- Hungary and Poland (184 countries)
- Lithuania and Slovakia (183 countries)