Name: Why Some Passports Open Doors — And Others Don’t
Uploaded: 2026-02-20T18:18:48.000Z
Duration: 6 min 36 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

So I am here in Singapore, which once again has the world's most powerful passport.

In the Hinley Passport Index, that means Singaporeans can travel to more places than anybody else.

On the Artan Passport Index, Singapore drops to second place behind the uae.

And on the Nomad Passport Index, Singapore comes in much lower at 20th.

So what's driving the gap and what does passport power really mean?

It's less about travel and more about a stamp of approval from other countries of your political stability, diplomacy and border integrity.

These differences come down to what each ranking measures.

We use real data from the International Air Transport Authority and ultimately visa free access is a very superficial way to rank countries.

There's much more depth that we go into on our Quality of Nationality Index, which ranks not just visa free access, but

Human Development Index, peace and stability, settlement, freedom as well as economic strength.

Artan tracks access to but weighs it differently and updates in real time.

And the Nomad Index takes a broader view, weighing taxation, global perception, dual citizenship policies and personal freedom.

By those measures, countries that dominate visa free rankings, including Singapore and the UAE, fall outside of the top 10.

Over the past two decades on the Henley Passport Index, some countries have seen dramatic gains while others have quietly slipped.

The standout climber is the United Arab Emirates.

Since 2006, the UAE has added 151 visa free destinations and climbed 57 places in the rankings.

The UAE has shot up the rankings, very much so, and it's not by accident.

It's obviously been a very considered move by the UAE authorities as part of their wider strategy to establish the UAE as a hub for business within the region.

And there's obviously a direct link between passport power, the number of business meetings that that would then Dr.

And then the economic growth that would come through.

This shift is visible even among long established powers.

The United States and the United Kingdom, who once held the top spot jointly in 2014, now sit at number 10 and 7 respectively.

But in real terms, dozens of countries now rank equally or above them.

Over the past year alone, both recorded their steepest annual drops in visa free access.

So Singapore by contrast, has been consistently near the top for years.

This good ranking is actually a multitude of many fundamental factors.

Many countries will allow citizens from Singapore to go in because there's a certain track record of diplomatic neutrality.

And more importantly, I think passport is more than just visitors.

It's actually a symbol of mobility, the movement of human, the movement of financial, the movement of innovation.

Singapore in itself is a brand based on good reputation, based on consistency of the record.

Singapore, of course, is small, but maybe precisely it is able to punch above its weight.

The advantage of being small is many countries don't feel threatened by you.

In practice, traveling with a weak passport often means lengthy visa waits, high rejection rates, uncertain travel plans, and

This is where the passport index shifts from travel to economics.

The friction really is delaying business, because a lot of the time, particularly with urgent moves, they needed to have happened yesterday because that's what created the urgency for the move in the first place.

And what we're seeing with our index is the gap between, between the haves and the have nots is getting larger.

So Singapore allows you to enter 192 countries without applying for a visa, where Afghanistan is just 24.

So this gap has grown significantly in the 20 years that we've been publishing this data.

Wealthy individuals often pursue second passports even when they already hold strong ones.

In this age of volatility, geopolitically, it is creating anxiety for individuals around what that may mean for them, particularly if they're citizens of certain countries.

And therefore the acquiring a second citizenship or a second passport gives them some flexibility, gives them some optionality.

It used to be more individuals from developing countries that are looking to have a Plan B, but

now we see strong Western countries also looking to obtain a Plan B.

Case in point, the United States in 2018 would have made up about 5% of Henley's business.

This has grown an unbelievable amount in 2025, making up 40% of our business.

So even though the United States has a very strong passport, people there are looking at the political instability and they're also wanting to ensure that they have optionality for their families for the future.

Several countries have tightened rules around citizenship by descent and investment programs.

As borders harden for trade, technology and capital, they're also hardening for people.

Passport rankings capture that shift in a single number.

But the real story is about who still has access and who increasingly faces friction.

When we are looking at countries that are considered to have strong passports, that's clearly extremely intentional on their part.

In other areas, we're seeing countries that did have stronger passports are falling down that list.

That's as a direct result in many cases, of stricter immigration policies.

And increasingly, those changes could be far more rapid than what we've seen before.