Irish citizens have something to be proud of because they hold one of the world’s most powerful passports. This ranking is based on The Henley Passport Index. It includes 199 different passports and 227 travel destinations.
Exclusive data from the International Air Transport Authority is used to rank each of the countries on the list. How they rank is based on the number of countries to which a passport holder could travel without needing a pre-arrival visa.
Ireland has dropped a place in the rankings since last year, but the country is still one of the world’s most powerful passports, coming in sixth place alongside the United Kingdom, France and Portugal. Not too shabby!
Irish passport holders can travel to 187 countries freely, which is only six fewer than Japanese passport holders who ranked first in the list with the ability to visit 193 countries visa-free. So who else ranked in the top ten this year?
1. Japan (193)
2. South Korea and Singapore (192)
3. Germany and Spain (190)
4. Finland, Italy and Luxembourg (189)
5. Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden (188)
6. France, Ireland, Portugal and the United Kingdom (187)
7. Belgium, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Norway Switzerland and the United States (186)
8. Australia, Canada, Greece and Malta (185)
9. Hungary and Poland (184)
10. Lithuania and Slovakia (183)
Unsurprisingly, Afghanistan was ranked lowest on the list, with passport holders able to visit just 27 countries without a visa. Iraq (29) and Syria (30) sit just above Afghanistan in the rankings. The lowest-scoring European country is Kosovo (41).