Vietnam in 88th place on powerful passport list

According to the Henley Passport Index 2019, three Asian countries, share the first-place position in the global ranking. They are Japan, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea.

With a total of 189 points, the passports of the three Asian nations offer their citizens visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to a record 189 destinations.

Uzbekistan and Germany came in second place with a total of 188 destinations accessible without a prior visa.

In joint-third place were Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, and Sweden whose passports give access to 187 countries while the UK was at fifth place with access to 185 countries. The United States ranked in sixth place with their passport giving access to 184 countries.

Meanwhile, the passports of Afghanistan and Iraq remained bottom of the global ranking with visa free access to just 30 countries.

According to Christian H. Kälin, Chairman of Henley & Partners, the statistics, which have been collected over the past 14 years, give evidence that a number of countries have loosened their visa policies for international visitors.

For example, China currently ranks 67th, a rise of 12 places in comparison to 2009. Chinese nationals can now travel to 74 countries without applying for a visa.

The Henley Passport Index is formulated based on data released by the International Air Transport Association, which maintains the world's largest database of travel information.

The index surveyed a total of 199 different passports against 227 different travel destinations.