Teri Anne TanIf you haven’t already heard, Singapore now has the most powerful passport in the world.
Earlier today, the red Singapore passport topped The Passport Index with the highest visa-free score of 159. Germany, which has a score of 158, was pushed off its title and now ranks second most powerful.
How did this happen? We’ll have to thank Paraguay, which decided to remove visa requirements for Singaporeans.
“For the first time ever an Asian country has the most powerful passport in the world,” said Philippe May, Managing Director of Arton Capital’s Singapore office, a financial advisory firm which provides investor programmes for residence and citizenship. The firm developed the Global Passport Power Rank of 2017, which ranks passports all over the world by how much cross-border access they have.
Over the years, the top ten passports have mostly been European, with Germany in the lead until today. Asian passports that have made top twenty include Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan.
“It is a testament of Singapore’s inclusive diplomatic relations and effective foreign policy,” Mr May added.
As of now, these are the passport power rankings:
- 159 – Singapore
- 158 – Germany
- 157 – Sweden, South Korea
- 156 – Denmark, Finland, Italy, France, Spain, Norway, Japan, United Kingdom
- 155 – Luxemburg, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal
- 154 – Malaysia, Ireland, Canada, United States of America
- 153 – Australia, Greece, New Zealand
- 152 – Malta, Czech Republic, Iceland
- 150 – Hungary
- 149 – Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia
