The latest results from the Henley Passport Index provide ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
For countries in Africa, the Seychelles passport holds the top spot as the nation with visa-free access to 153 countries. Seychelles ranks in 29th place on the index, ahead of Mauritius in 34th place with visa-free travel to 146 countries.
While the small island state’s passport is still faring better than many of its other African counterparts, Seychelles has slipped down by one place from its prior ranking.
South Africa’s passport moved up two places on the index to take the 53rd spot after Egypt was added to South Africa’s visa-free destination list. The passport allows holders to travel to 106 countries without a visa – 47% of the world’s destinations.
The fourth best-performing African country is Kenya, in 73rd place, with access to 73 nations around the world without a visa.
“The Henley Passport Index measures visa-free access to 227 destinations across the world, which of course makes it an extremely useful tool for travellers,” explains Chairman of Henley & Partners, Dr Christian Kaelin, who invented the passport index concept nearly 20 years ago.
The report also reveals that just 6% of passports worldwide give their holders visa-free access to more than 70% of the global economy.
The rest of the world
For the fifth year running, Japan crowns the Henley Passport Index, which is based on exclusive data from Iata. Japanese citizens are now able to visit an astonishing 193 destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free, while South Koreans and Singaporeans, whose countries are tied in second place on the index, enjoy a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 192.
Germany and Spain are joint third, with visa-free access to 190 destinations worldwide.
The UK and the US remain in sixth and seventh places, with scores of 187 and 186 respectively, and it appears increasingly unlikely that either country will ever regain the top spot on the index which they jointly held nearly a decade ago in 2014.
Afghanistan remains firmly at the bottom of the index, with a score of just 27 – 166 fewer visa-free destinations than Japan, which represents the widest global mobility gap in the index’s 18-year history.
