Canadian passport holders can enter 187 of the world’s 227 destinations visa-free, placing this country in 7th place on the respected Henley Passport Index, which rates the world’s most powerful passports based on visa-free accessibility. Canada’s ranking edged ahead by one over 2023, when it ranked 8th on the list.
According to the Index, Singapore reclaimed its No. 1 ranking from 2023, breaking away from the peloton of six countries that shared the top spot on the twice-yearly list at the start of 2024. The city-state also sets a new record score, with its citizens now enjoying access to 195 travel destinations.
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain drop to joint-2nd place from the start of the year, each with visa-free access to 192 destinations, and an unprecedented seven-nation cohort, each with access to 191 destinations without a prior visa – Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, South Korea, and Sweden – now sit in 3rd place on the ranking, which is based on exclusive and official data from IATA.
The UK hangs onto 4th place along with Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland, despite its visa-free destination score falling to 190.
Canada’s 7th-place ranking ties it with Czechia, Hungary, and Malta.
The US, continues its now decade-long slide down the index, dropping down to 8th spot, with access to just 186 destinations visa-free. Former passport powerhouses, the UK and the US jointly held 1st place on the index 10 years ago in 2014.
Afghanistan remains firmly entrenched as the world’s weakest passport, losing access to yet another destination over the past six months, leaving its citizens with access to only 26 countries visa-free – the lowest score ever recorded in history of the 19-year-old index.
Canada
Canada had ranked 7th or 8th since 2021, and before that, sixth four years in a row. Historically, the document has never ranked lower than 9th and hit its high point – 2nd – in 2014. In 2023, Canadians could enter 185 destinations visa-free, two fewer than this year.
Canada also rates as the 77th most open country in the world, allowing only 53 nationalities to enter without visas. (The US allows 45).
Biggest climbers and fallers
The UAE makes it into the Top 10 for the first time, having added an impressive 152 destinations since the index’s inception in 2006 to achieve its current visa-free score of 185, and rising a remarkable 53 places in the ranking from 62nd to 9th position in the process.
Interestingly, both China and Ukraine are among the Top 10 countries that have climbed the highest in the ranking over the past decade. Since 2014, China has jumped up 24 places from 83rd to 59th (with access to 85 destinations visa-free), while Ukraine has advanced by 23 spots, from 53rd to 30th, with its nationals able to visit 148 destinations without a prior visa. Russia, on the other hand, has fallen seven places over the past 10 years, from 38th to 45th position (with visa-free access to just 116 destinations).
The biggest faller over the last decade is Venezuela, which has plunged 17 places from 25th to 42nd on the Henley Passport Index. Yemen has tumbled 15 places to sit at 100th on the ranking, while both Nigeria and Syria have fallen 13 places to 92nd and 102nd, respectively. Bangladesh comes in as the 5th-biggest faller, dropping 11 places from 86th to 97th position over the past 10 years.
Commenting in the July 2024 edition of the Henley Global Mobility Report, Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and the inventor of the passport index concept, says “the general trend over the past two decades has been towards greater travel freedom, with the global average number of destinations travellers are able to access visa-free nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024. However, the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index is now wider than it has ever been, with top-ranked Singapore able to access a record-breaking 169 more destinations visa-free than Afghanistan.”