The Passport Index is an interactive online tool that provides its users with insights about passports, including the ability to compare and rank the world’s passports. Rankings are based on the freedom of movement and visa-free travel open to holders of particular passports. The site allows the display of various territories' passports using a variety of filters such as region and passport cover colour.
''World Openness Score''
The World Openness Score is a measure that tracks the ability of the world’s population to travel visa-free. It has grown from 17,904 to 20,143 between 2015 and August 2018.
Visa-free score: The Passport Index ranks passports based on a "total visa-free score," which assigns passports a point for each country their holders can visit without a visa, with a visa on arrival or by obtaining electronic travel authorization. The country with the highest visa-free score has the most powerful passport.
Welcoming Score: The Passport Index awards one point to each country’s passport which allows its bearer to enter visa-free or with visa on arrival. The country with the highest welcoming score is the most welcoming country in the world.
World Openness Score: The World Openness Score is a measure that reflects the travel openness between countries. It has grown from 17,904 to 18,680 between 2015 and August 2017. On 21 November 2018 it had reached 20,189.
Global Mobility Score: The Global Mobility Score is a benchmark that shows an individual’s level of freedom of global mobility reflecting one or more passports in their possession. Higher scores reflect increased freedom of mobility.
Ranking
Global Passport Power Rank: World’s passports are ranked by their total visa-free score. Countries that share equal visa-free scores, are sorted by the number of visa-free countries portion of that score.
Individual Passport Power Rank: Data from the latest UN Human Development Index is used to further break the ties and order the countries in unique ranks.
Welcoming Countries Rank: The Passport Index ranks countries by how welcoming they are to other nationalities.
Results
Passport Index rankings are in real-time and continue to vary as new changes to visa agreements are made. For the most part, the Top 10 places have been occupied by European countries with the exception of Singapore. Between 2017 and 2018, at top of the list with a visa-free score of 165 were Singapore and Germany, while the United States of America, South Korea, France, Denmark and Sweden were among the 11 countries that shared the second spot with a score of 164. The UAE passport now takes fourth place with a visa-free score of 179.
Case studies
United Arab Emirates
In 2017, The Passport Index was assigned to monitor the development of the newly launched UAE Passport Force Initiative, with the aim to position the Emirati passport on the list of the five most powerful passports in the world by 2021. By 31 October 2018, the Emirati passport had already reached fourth place. On December 1, 2018, however, the Emirati passport became the most powerful passport in the world, with access to 178 countries without visa as of December 2019. According to Henley and Partners, however, it is not the most powerful passport.
Background
The Passport Index was launched by Arton Capital, a financial services firm with a head office in Montreal, in 2014.
