A fresh take on the 2025 Henley Passport Index
What makes a passport powerful
A strong passport is measured by travel openness: how many destinations you can enter without a visa. The Henley Passport Index quantifies this by counting visa‑free and visa‑on‑arrival access for each country, using exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). In its 20‑year history, the United States has slipped out of the top 10 for the first time.
The 2025 top lineup
- Singapore — 193 destinations
- South Korea — 190
- Japan — 189
- Germany / Italy / Luxembourg / Spain / Switzerland — 188
- Austria / Belgium / Denmark / Finland / France / Ireland / Netherlands — 187
- Greece / Hungary / New Zealand / Norway / Portugal / Sweden — 186
- Australia / Czech Republic / Malta / Poland — 185
- Croatia / Estonia / Slovakia / Slovenia / United Arab Emirates / United Kingdom — 184
- Canada — 183
- Latvia / Liechtenstein — 182
US performance and why it slipped
The US sits in 12th place (tied with Malaysia), with visa‑free access to 180 of the 227 destinations tracked. A rule of the index is that countries with identical scores share the same rank, which means 36 passports now outrank the US. The slide is tied to recent policy shifts: Brazil ended visa‑free entry for US (and Canadian, Australian) citizens in April over reciprocity; Papua New Guinea and Myanmar adjusted entry rules; Somalia launched a new eVisa system; and Vietnam left the US off its latest visa‑free expansion. “The declining strength of the US passport over the past decade is more than a reshuffle,” said Christian H. Kaelin, chair of Henley & Partners — it reflects a broader shift toward openness and cooperation among high‑mobility nations.
Contrasting trends
While the US has retreated, China has steadily climbed the openness ladder, forging new visa‑free agreements (for example, with Russia and several Gulf, South American, and European states). Over the last decade, China rose from 94th to 60th on the Henley ranking, and in the openness index it advanced from 84th to 80th, now granting visa‑free entry to 58 countries compared with the US’s 46.
