Singapore brings back the world’s most powerful passport: what are its benefits?

Singapore breaks away from the group of six countries that shared the top spot in the Henley Passport Index going into the new year, and reclaims its title as the passport most powerful in the world in the latest ranking published today. The city-state also sets a new record, as its citizens can now travel visa-free to 195 destinations out of a total of 227 worldwide.

France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain take the 2nd spot, each with visa-free access to 192 destinations, and an unprecedented cohort of seven nations each with visa-free access to 191 destinations – Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden – now occupy the 3rd spot in the ranking, which is based on exclusive and official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The UK remains in 4th place, alongside Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, despite its visa-free destination score dropping to 190. USAon the other hand, continues its decade-long decline in the index, dropping to 8th place, with access to just 186 visa-free destinations.

Former passport powers the UK and the US jointly held the top spot in the index 10 years ago in 2014. Afghanistan remains firmly entrenched as the passport weakest in the world, with visa-free access to just 26 countries, the lowest score ever recorded in the index’s 19-year history.

Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, President of Henley & Partners, states: “The global average number of destinations that travellers can access without a visa has almost doubled, from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024. However, the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index is now wider than ever, and Singaporethe top-ranked country, can access a record 169 more visa-free destinations than Afghanistan”.

According to IATA, airlines will connect nearly 5 billion people on more than 22,000 routes on 39 million flights by 2024, but IATA CEO Willie Walsh says the margins are incredibly tight:

“The aviation industry expects revenues of nearly $1 trillion this year, but expenses will also hit a record $936 billion. Net profit will be $30.5 billion. This translates into a modest net margin of around 3%, making profit per passenger just $6.14 – barely enough for an espresso in a typical hotel bar. Despite this, the real cost of air travel has fallen by 34% over the past decade.”.

Promotions, demotions and elections

The UAE breaks into the top 10 for the first time, adding an impressive 152 destinations since the index’s inception in 2006 to achieve its current visa-free score of 185, making it the biggest climber, moving up a remarkable 53 places from 62nd to 9th.

The biggest decline in the past decade is Venezuela, which has fallen 17 places from 25th to 42nd place. The country will hold crucial presidential elections on July 28, which could change the fate of more than seven million Venezuelans who have fled their country in the past ten years.

Commenting on the July 2024 edition of the Henley Global Mobility Report, published today alongside the Latest Passport Rankingformer career U.S. State Department diplomat and nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Annie Pforzheimer, says business groups in immigration- and tourism-dependent industries in the United States are extremely concerned about the upcoming U.S. election:

“Their main concerns relate to measures likely to be imposed in a second Trump administration, including the end of the Temporary Protected Status regime, the reversal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, and the resulting mass deportations of up to 1 million people now eligible for those programs.”.

Africa tops EU visa rejection list

In exclusive new research published in today’s report, Professor Mehari Taddele Maru, Adjunct Professor at the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Italy, compares Schengen visa rejection rates for African applicants with those from other regions.

The results show that around 3 in 10 or 30% of African Schengen visa applicants were rejected, compared to 1 in 10 applicants worldwide, despite the continent having the lowest number of visa applications per capita.

The professor also found evidence that the poorer the African country of origin, the higher the rejection rate for its citizens:

“Despite justifications based on apparent security or economic concerns, the European visa system clearly demonstrates a predetermined bias against African applicants who face a triple whammy: lower enforcement power, passporthigher visa refusal rates and consequently limited economic mobility. In short, poorer people face the greatest difficulties when seeking to travel or move to more prosperous countries.”.