Australian passport power: Here's how many destinations you can access visa-free

Australians now have a more powerful passport, according to the latest Henley Passport Index, which has a new country in first place for the first time in five years.

Australian passport holders can travel to 186 countries without a visa. Source: Getty, AFP / Patrick T Fallon

KEY POINTS

• Singaporeans now have the world's most powerful passport, according to the latest Henley index.
• Singapore toppled Japan, which is now in third place.
• Australia has climbed the rankings, from eighth to sixth.

Japan has been knocked from its perch and no longer has the world's most powerful passport, according to the latest Henley index, which shows Australia has climbed the rankings.

After five years at the top, Japan was toppled by Singapore, where are able to visit 192 travel destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free.

Germany, Italy, and Spain have all moved into second place with visa-free access to 190 destinations.

Japanese passport holders join those of six other nations - Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, South Korea, and Sweden - in third place, and the United Kingdom has turned a corner and moved to fourth place after a six-year decline.

Australia has climbed up the rankings from eighth to sixth, with passport holders able to travel to 186 destinations, (up from 185 after including Suriname) without a visa, or where they're able to obtain a visa, visitor's permit, or an electronic travel authority (ETA) upon arrival.

According to the Henley Passport Index, Singapore has the world's most powerful passport, while Australia ranks sixth. Source: SBS News

The United States has continued its decade-long slide down the index, dropping a further two places to eighth spot with access to 184 destinations visa-free.

The UK and the US jointly held first place on the index nearly 10 years ago in 2014 but have been on a downward trajectory ever since.

Afghanistan remains at the bottom of the index, with a visa-free access score of just 27, followed by Iraq at 29, and Syria at 30 - the three weakest passports in the world.

What is the Henley Passport Index?

It uses data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA) to compare the visa-free access of 199 nations' passports to 227 destinations.

Henley & Partners, a London-based investment migration consultancy firm, has been running it for 18 years.

While the average number of destinations travellers are able to access visa-free has nearly doubled from 58 in 2006 to 109 in 2023, the gap between the top and bottom is wider than it has ever been.

According to the 2023 index, citizens of top-ranked Singapore are able to access 165 more destinations visa-free than those from Afghanistan.

Which countries do not require visas?

Henley & Partners has also published research into the relationship between a country’s openness to foreigners and its own citizens’ travel freedom.

The new Henley Openness Index ranks all 199 countries worldwide according to the number of nationalities they permit entry to without a prior visa.

The top 20 "most open" countries are all small island nations or African states, except for Cambodia.

There are 12 completely open countries that offer visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to all 198 other passports in the world.

The completely open countries are Burundi, Comoro Islands, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, Micronesia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Samoa, Seychelles, Timor-Leste, and Tuvalu.