The most powerful passport in the world: The surprising European nation takes second place!
Singapore has retained its place at the top of a ranking of the world's strongest passports, previously knocking Spain off the top spot. But there is a surprising new entry on the podium that has occupied the second place since December 2024.
Finland has moved up the rankings, moving up from 13th in 2023 and 7th in early 2024, and has narrowly edged Spain. The VisaGuide.World ranking is seen as one of the most trusted in the travel industry, along with the Henley Passport Index.
The company rates 199 countries and territories globally and bases its scores on factors including visa-free access, e-visas and global mobility. It then uses its own Destination Significance Score (DSS) to assign a unique value to each passport, although the DSS is not revealed in the ranking.
With this system, VisaGuide.World has revealed that the Singaporean passport is officially the strongest passport in the entire world with a score of 91.27 out of a possible 100 as of December 2024. Finland is in second place, with 90.88 points. followed by Spain, with a score of 90.87.
Next are the Danish and Italian passports, which come with scores of 90.63 and 90.58 respectively. It's good news for Europe as a whole, with only one other non-continental country, Japan, in the top 20. Japan ranks 8th, up from 15th in September last year. Malta, France, Austria and Hungary round out the top 10.
How does VisaGuide.World rank passports?
Published four times a year, VisaGuide. The World Passport Ranking examines the number of destinations that passport holders can access without a visa. Henley, commonly thought of as the authority, takes a similar approach but has yet to release its rankings for this quarter. VisaGuide.World takes other factors into consideration, creating its own DSS for each travel destination.
This rating factors in the type of entry policy each country applies to an individual passport. This includes visa-free entry, Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA), visa on arrival, embassy-approved e-visas, travel without a passport or denied entry. This means that the next order may look very different as Schengen countries introduce the Entry/Exit System (EES) and abolish ETIAS visas for some non-EU countries and the UK issues its ETA her.
The DSS also assigns points for the country's GDP, global power and tourism development. However, not all of its criteria are considered equal. Visa-free access to a country with a high DSS earns a passport more index points than entry to a country with a low score. The fact that VisaGuide.World does not specify each country's DSS means that other factors may also affect the index score.
Why has Finland risen in the ranking of passports?
Finland managed to knock Spain out of second place thanks to passport holders being able to travel without a passport to a greater number of destinations 45 compared to 43. All European countries in the top 20 have a high number of passport-free travel destinations, unlike Singapore and Japan, thanks to the existence of the European Union and the Schengen area. For these citizens, it is possible to travel only with an identity card, making the freedom of movement simple.
Spanish passport holders have also seen a reduction in the number of countries they can travel to without a visa, from 160 countries and territories to just 107. However, it appears to be a decline across the board. Singaporean passport holders could previously visit 164 countries without a visa, but today, this only applies to 160.
While the ranking does not explicitly say why this is so, it is a figure that changes regularly due to changing diplomatic relations, mutual visa policies, and the political and economic stability of countries and territories globally.
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