Singapore no longer has the world's most powerful passport

Singapore no longer holds the title for world’s most powerful passport, with Japan having usurped the mantle from the Lion City.

According to the latest Henley Passport Index, holders of Japanese passports can now travel visa-free to 189 countries in the world.

Singapore, meanwhile, now ties for second place with Germany enabling passport holders to travel to 188 destinations without a visa.

Europe on the whole continues to offer many of the most powerful passports in the world, though.

Third place is shared by six countries, each of which has visa-free access to 187 countries. Aside from South Korea, all of these are in Europe: Finland, France, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

Meanwhile, Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the UK jointly hold the fourth spot with the US, with each having visa-free access to 186 countries.

And while it may only rank 68th with visa-free access to just 70 countries, China was among the biggest climbers this year rising 17 places within the rankings compared with 2017.

It is worth noting that the Henley Passport Index differs from the 2017 Passport Index from Arton Capital, which in October last year named the Singaporean passport the strongest in the world after it overtook Germany, with which it had jointly held the top spot.

The two indices use slightly different criteria to discern each country’s “visa-free score”.

As such, in the 2017 Passport Index last year Japan ranked just fourth most powerful. In Asia, both Singapore and South Korea ranked higher.

At the time, Arton Capital remarked that Singapore was the first country in Asia to hold the top spot according to its rankings.

The Henley Passport Index is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

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