The Henley Passport Index for the fourth quarter of 2019 has just been announced by the Investment and Settlement Advisory Firm Henley & Partners.
Henley & Partners' passport power ranking is based on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) database, with standards on the number of countries and territories that citizens of each country can use their passport to enter without a prior visa.
Accordingly, Vietnam's passport ranks 90th out of 107 passports ranked because it only allows free travel to 51 countries. In the region, the power of Vietnam's passport is behind Cambodia (ranked 88, visa-free to 53 countries) and above Laos (ranked 92, 49 countries). Compared to last year, this year's ranking of Vietnam's passport has dropped 15 places, closer to the group of 10 countries classified as "worst passports", including North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan...
With a Vietnamese passport, visitors can enter 51 countries without a visa.
Japan and Singapore are the two countries that hold the top position in terms of passport power when citizens of these two countries can freely travel to 190 countries without a visa. With 188 visa-free countries, the passport of Korean citizens is the second "strongest" in the world, equal to Germany, Finland and stronger than Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg (ranked 3rd); France, Spain, Sweden (ranked 4th); Australia, Netherlands, Portugal (ranked 5th) or Canada, Belgium, UK, USA... (ranked 6th).
The next Asian countries and territories with powerful passports are Malaysia (ranked 12th, with access to 177 countries), Hong Kong (ranked 18th, 168 countries), Brunei (ranked 21st, 165 countries), Taiwan (ranked 31st, 145 countries) and Macao (ranked 33rd, 141 countries).
Along with Vietnam, other Asian countries have passports ranked in the lower half of the list, including China (ranked 72nd, 71st), Indonesia (ranked 73rd, 70th), India (ranked 82nd, 59th)...
Afghanistan is once again at the bottom of the list. Afghan citizens are granted visa-free access to only 25 countries worldwide.
