As the frequent travelers among you may already know, mobility around the world has expanded considerably in recent years. Not only have more and more countries in foreign continents become safer – now it is also easier to enter them as there is less bureaucracy involved. Especially if you have a German passport.
This may not be news, but it turns out that having a German passport is something of a privilege. At least that’s according to the Henley Passport Index, an original, authoritative ranking of all the world’s passports. These are ranked by the number of destinations to which their holders have access without a prior visa, based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association(IATA) – the largest and most accurate database of travel information.
And as we said, the German passport is a big deal. It comes in second place in the ranking and allows its holders to travel freely to 190 countries. Germany is even tied with South Korea in second place, also with 190 countries. Only Japan and Singapore have even more powerful passports: both have access to 192 countries.
These are the 10 best passports for 2022:
- 1st Singapore, Japan (192 countries)
- 2. Germany, South Korea (190)
- 3. Finland, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg (189)
- 4. France, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria (188)
- 5. Portugal, Ireland (187)
- 6. Belgium, Norway, United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland, New Zealand (186)
- 7. Australia, Canada, Greece, Malta, Czech Republic (185)
- 8. Hungary, Poland (183)
- 9. Slovakia, Lithuania (182)
- 10. Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia (181)
The index has been published quarterly for 17 years now and covers 199 different passports and 227 different destinations. It is considered the standard reference tool for global citizens and sovereign states when it comes to assessing where a passport ranks on the global mobility spectrum.
But it’s not just citizens from the northern hemisphere who now have more access to different destinations: The reduction in travel bureaucracy is indeed a global trend. In 2006, the average number of countries that could be visited without first obtaining a visa was 57 worldwide. In 2022, the average has risen to 107.