This year brought travel industry to a halt. While we isolated inside our homes, our passports were also left unused.
However, the updated Henley and Partners Passport Index of 2021 has come out with a new ranking of the world’s most powerful passports, and India ranks 85th on the new list.
The ranking is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which maintains the world’s largest and most accurate database of travel information, and research by the Henley & Partners Research Department.
Here is the list of the top 10 countries:
* Japan (#1)
* Singapore (#2)
* South Korea (#3)
* Germany (#3)
* Italy (#4)
* Finland (#4)
* Spain (#4)
* Luxembourg (#4)
* Denmark (#5)
* Austria (#5)
* Sweden (#6)
* France (#6)
* Portugal (#6)
* Netherlands (#6)
* Ireland (#6)
* Switzerland (#7)
* United States (#7)
* United Kingdom (#7)
* Norway (#7)
* Belgium (#7)
* New Zealand (#7)
* Greece (#8)
* Malta (#8)
* Czech Republic (#8)
* Australia (#8)
* Canada (#9)
* Hungary (#10)
Without taking temporary restrictions into account, Japan continues to hold the number one position on the index, with passport holders able to access 191 destinations around the world visa-free.
This marks the third consecutive year that Japan has held the top spot, either alone or jointly with Singapore.
Pakistan (rank 107) and Nepal (rank 104) continue to be in the ‘worst passports to hold’ category as reported by CNN with Pakistan having a visa-free score of 32 countries and Nepal having a score of 38 destinations.
Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be the countries with the worst passport to hold with a passport score of 29, 28 and 26 respectively.
