Greek Passport Among Top 5 Most Powerful in World

The Greek passport has jumped up two places and is now the fifth most powerful in the world, according to the latest Henley Passport Index.

This year saw a strong reshuffle in the list, announced annually by the London-based migration consultancy, which uses IATA data to rank the passports of all countries from the most to the least powerful.

This year’s passport index differs from last year in that Japan is not the sole occupier of the top place, but instead is joined by five other countries.

Matching Japan in the top spot are France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Singapore, whose citizens benefit from visa-free or visa-on-demand access to 194 destinations worldwide. This represents a record number, because the record last year held by Japan was 193.

There is also a tie for second place between Sweden, Finland, and South Korea. Citizens carrying these passports having easy access to 193 countries, while Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Denmark have easy access to 192 countries.

Greek Passport is Fifth Most Powerful in the World

Greece has come in fifth place, rising two positions since last year, when it was ranked number seven. The country is joined in fifth place by Malta and Switzerland, and fourth place is occupied by Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, and Portugal. Greece placed eighth in 2022.

In sixth place are Australia and New Zealand, joined by the Czech Republic and Poland, while the number seven spot is filled by the US, Canada, and Hungary, which have easy access to 188 countries.

The most notable increase for this year is the United Arab Emirates, having added 106 countries to its list over the last ten years, now putting it at number eleven.

Coming in at number eight are Estonia and Lithuania, and number nine are Latvia, Slovakia, and Slovenia, while Iceland is tenth.

In last year’s list, of the countries that sat in the top ten, the US saw the smallest increase in its score on the Henley Passport Index over the past decade, securing visa-free access to just twelve additional destinations between 2013 and 2023.

By comparison, Singapore increased its score by 25, pushing it five places up the ranking over the 2013 to 2023 decade.

Henley & Partners has also published a new index called the Henley Openness Index, which looks into the relationship between a country’s openness to foreigners and its own citizens’ travel freedom.

The top twenty “most open” countries on this Index are all small island nations or African states, with the exception of Cambodia.

There are twelve completely open countries that offer visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to all 198 other passports in the world. These are: Burundi, Comoro Islands, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, Micronesia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Samoa, Seychelles, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu.