The passport is a necessary identification document to travel to countries outside the Schengen area, where it is possible to circulate thanks to the agreements between the different European countries only with the DNI or the national identity document of each country. When traveling to certain countries, however, in addition to having a passport, it is necessary to obtain a visa, a kind of permit to be able to enter and tour that particular nation for a certain time.
The Henley Passport index annually classifies the different passports of the different countries according to the destinations to which they give access without the need to request a visa. These types of conditions depend on international relations between nations and existing treaties between governments.
In this year’s ranking, the biggest surprise has been Japan’s fall as the country with the greatest ‘freedom’ in its passport. The first place in 2023 as the passport with the largest number of visa-free destinations, a total of 192 tourist destinations out of the 227 in total in the world, is for Singapore.
Passports with access to the largest number of countries without a visa
In the second position we find Spain, along with Italy and Germany, with access to a total of 190 countries without the need to issue a visa. The third position is for Japan, along with other countries that can be found in the following list, with access to 189 countries.
Singapore.Germany, Italy and Spain.Japan, Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, South Korea and Sweden.Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.Belgium, the Czech Republic, Malta, Norway, New Zealand, Portugal and SwitzerlandAustralia, Hungary and Poland.Canada and Greece.Lithuania and the United States.Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia.Estonia and Iceland.
Passports with access to a smaller number of countries without a visa
At the other end of the list, that of countries with passports that give less access to visa-free tourist destinations, we find Afghanistan, with visa-free access to 27 countries. In the same situation are Iraq (29 destinations) and Syria (30 destinations).
We also find in this category of passports those of countries such as Pakistan (33 destinations), Yemen and Somalia (35 destinations), Palestine and Nepal (38 destinations), North Korea (39 destinations), Bangladesh (40 destinations), Libya and Sri Lanka (41 destinations), and Kosovo (42 destinations).
