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Which international locations you can get into together with your U.S. passport was one thing you by no means needed to fear about. When you had a passport from the U.S., it appeared like nearly no nation was off limits, and also you wouldn’t have to double-check your travel plans. However starting in 2014, the U.S. passport began to lose a few of its star power. Right here’s the place the Henley Index (which ranks passport energy) dropped the U.S. passport on their newest up to date checklist.

Why passport energy issues
- Greater energy lets you go to different international locations without having a vacationer Visa.
- You may keep for an extended time.
- You possible gained’t have to offer extra documentation.
Holders of stronger passports are capable of take pleasure in fairly just a few perks that make touring a lot simpler. Mainly, all you must do is buy your ticket and go. Weaker passports may value you extra cash paying charges, having to show you could have the cash to go to, and you can even have to show over an itinerary earlier than coming into the nation. That’s an excessive amount of homework to take a trip to get away from work.
The stronger your passport, the much less problem you’ll have coming into and leaving the place you go to. You’ll have fewer steps earlier than you journey and can have the ability to plan longer journeys to get the complete expertise in.

The place the U.S. ranks as of late
- The U.S. passport checks in at quantity 7 on the passport index, with 185 locations to go to visa-free.
- The U.S. used to carry the highest spot with the U.Ok. in 2014.
- The U.S. has solely added a few dozen locations to its visa-free checklist since 2013.
The Henley Passport Index ranks passports in response to knowledge from the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation (IATA). Up till a decade in the past, the U.S. used to have one of many strongest passports in the world. However in the previous few years, it’s slid all the way in which all the way down to the seventh strongest booklet to carry. This is because of locations like Singapore and the UAE including large numbers to their visa-free scores.
For comparability, whereas the U.S. has added a few dozen visa-free locations prior to now decade, Singapore has added double that in the identical time interval. After all, there was some upward mobility — a month or so ago, the U.S. was within the eighth spot, with solely 184 international locations its passport holders may go to with out a visa.
Greg Lindsay, main world strategist and concrete tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Jacobs Institute, famous in Henley’s World Mobility Report 2023 Q3, “The story is a straightforward one — by kind of standing nonetheless, the U.S. has fallen behind. Whereas its absolute rating has, in truth, risen over the past decade, the U.S. has been steadily overtaken by rivals corresponding to South Korea, Japan, and Singapore.”
After all, none of that is to say that the U.S. passport isn’t nonetheless fairly sturdy — 185 out of 227 attainable international locations is nothing to scoff at. And, usually talking, the pattern has been towards higher journey freedom for passport holders from all international locations: In 2006, the typical variety of locations vacationers may go to visa-free was 58; as we speak, it’s 109.
If you’re one of many 22 million People who managed to get a passport in 2022, you joined the 56% of U.S. adults who maintain one. Whereas a U.S. passport remains to be an incredible factor to have and can get you into extra international locations than you’ll in all probability ever see in your life, it’s not the highest canine within the passport room, and will fall even additional behind.
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