Travel and Tourism

An Asian country has the world's most powerful passport for the first time

Gates, passport control and toilets signs are seen at Lisbon's airport, Portugal June 24, 2016. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante

Singapore's passport has been named as the most powerful in the world, with Germany a close second. Image: REUTERS/Rafael Marchante

Alison Millington
Lifestyle Editor, Business Insider UK
Share:
Our Impact
What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Travel and Tourism?
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Travel and Tourism is affecting economies, industries and global issues
A hand holding a looking glass by a lake
Crowdsource Innovation
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:

Travel and Tourism

Collecting passports has become a status symbol for the super-rich — or those who simply love to travel.

However, some are much more sought-after than others.

And Singapore has been named as the country with the most powerful passport in the world in a new report.

The 2017 Global Passport Power Rank, produced by advisory firm Arton Capital, put Singapore at the top of its list.

It ranked all of the passports of the world by their "total visa-free score," where a point is given for each country that their holders can visit without a visa, with a visa on arrival, or using electronic travel authorisation.

It gave Singapore a score of 159, meaning holders of a Singaporean passport can now easily visit 159 countries, either visa-free or by gaining a visa on arrival.

According to CNN, the top ranking for Singapore is thanks to a recent decision by Paraguay to remove visa requirements for passport holders of the Asian city-state.

Until this decision, Singapore was tied with Germany at 158. Germany now holds the spot for the second most powerful passport at 158, closely followed by Sweden and South Korea at 157.

The United Kingdom got a score of 156, while the United States got 154.

This is the first time an Asian country has had the most powerful passport in the world, according to Arton Capital.

Meanwhile, the least mobile passport in the world is Afghanistan, with a score of 22, followed by Pakistan and Iraq at 26.

Loading...
Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Related topics:
Travel and TourismEconomic Progress
Share:
World Economic Forum logo
Global Agenda

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

How Japan is attracting digital nomads to shape local economies and innovation

Naoko Tochibayashi and Naoko Kutty

March 28, 2024

1:17

About Us

Events

Media

Partners & Members

  • Join Us

Language Editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

© 2024 World Economic Forum