Where does Pakistan stand on world’s strongest passport rankings?

ISLAMABAD - A passport is a vital travel document without which you can’t cross borders nowadays. Besides being a travel document, a passport also reflects the overall outlook of the country which means that a prosperous country’s passport is stronger and an underdeveloped nation’s passport would be weaker.

Fresh passport rankings have been announced by Henley Passport Index for Q3 2023 according to which Pakistan’s passport is the fourth worst in the world.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s passport with a visa-free score of only 33 is only stronger than Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – all three war-torn countries; Pakistan is at the 100th spot out of 103 ranks. 

When it comes to the strongest passports in the world, Singapore leads the battle followed by Germany, Italy, and Spain.

The citizens of Singapore can visit 192 destinations out of the world’s 227 visa-free which makes it clinch the top spot and dethrone Japan which had been retaining the title earlier.

Regarding the growth, United Arab Emirates has surprised many as its passport has climbed three places from last year to rank as the 12th most powerful passport; holders of Emirati passports can now visit 179 destinations visa-free.

“The UAE has added an impressive 107 destinations to its visa-free score since 2013, resulting in a massive leap of 44 places in the ranking over the past 10 years from 56th to 12th position,” said Christian Kaelin, chairman of Henley & Partners, which compiles the data.

The rankings are based on the number of destinations passport holders from different countries can access without obtaining a prior visa and are compiled using official data from the International Air Transport Association.

The rankings of the toppers are as under:

1. Singapore (192 countries)

2. Germany, Italy, Spain (190 countries)

3. Austria, Finland, France, Japan, Luxembourg, South Korea, Sweden (189 countries)

4. Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, United Kingdom (188 countries)

5. Belgium, Czech Republic, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland (187 countries)

6. Australia, Hungary, Poland (186 countries)

7. Canada, Greece (185 countries)

8. Lithuania, United States (184 countries)

9. Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia (183 countries)

10. Estonia, Iceland (182 countries)

Amongst other notable countries, Turkiye stands at 50th spot, Qatar at 52nd, Maldives at 57, Oman at 60th, China at 63rd, and Morocco at 73rd spot.

The United States grabbed the 8th spot on the rankings with a visa-free score of 184 while the United Kingdom clinched 4th spot on the rankings.