The world's most powerful passports for 2021

Maureen O'Hare, CNN • Updated 5th October 2021

World's most powerful passports: Global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners has released its quarterly report on the world's most desirable passports. Click on to find out which passport offers the most access in 2021.

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(CNN) — The global gap in travel freedoms has never been wider, says the latest report by London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners.

The firm's Henley Passport Index, based on exclusive data provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), has been regularly monitoring the world's most travel-friendly passports since 2006.

It says that increasing travel barriers that have been introduced over the past 18 months of the Covid pandemic have resulted in the widest global mobility gap in the index's 16-year history.

The index doesn't take temporary restrictions into account, so leaving actual current travel access aside, holders of the passports at the top of its ranking -- Japan and Singapore -- are able, in theory, to travel visa-free to 192 destinations.

That's 166 more destinations than Afghan nationals, who sit at the bottom of the index of 199 passports, and can access just 26 countries without requiring a visa in advance.

Europe dominates

Further down the top 10, the rankings remains virtually unchanged as we enter the final quarter of 2021. South Korea is tied with Germany in second place (with a score of 190) and Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain are all together in third place (with a score of 189).

EU countries dominate the top of the list as usual, with Austria and Denmark in fourth place and France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden in fifth place.

New Zealand, which announced this week that it was moving away from its Covid-19 elimination strategy in favor of a vaccine certificate system, is in sixth place alongside Belgium and Switzerland.

The United States and the United Kingdom, which held the top spot together back in 2014, are now more modestly placed in the rankings. They are at No. 7, alongside the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta and Norway, with visa-free or visa-on-demand access to 185 destinations.

Australia and Canada are in eighth place, Hungary is ninth, and Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia have together broken into the No.10 spot, with a score of 182.

Germany has the highest-ranking European passport.

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The best passports to hold in 2021 are:

1. Japan, Singapore (192 destinations)

2. Germany, South Korea (190)

3. Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain (189)

4. Austria, Denmark (188)

5. France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden (187)

6. Belgium, New Zealand, Switzerland (186)

7. Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, Norway, United Kingdom, United States (185)

8. Australia, Canada (184)

9. Hungary (183)

10. Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia (182)

Copied partially from the Internet by SNUMA WM, October 5, 2021