Context

• Recently, Henley Passport Index 2023 has been released which assess the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.

About the Index:

• Released by: Henley and Partners.
• The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.

Key Findings:

• Singapore is on the Top with most powerful passport in the world, with its citizens able to visit 192 travel destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free.
• Germany, Italy, and Spain occupy the second place.
• Japan remained at the third position with countries like Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, South Korea, and Sweden.
• India’s Performance: India has climbed seven places on Henley Passport Index 2023 to 80th rank from 87 last year.
  
  

Henley Openness Index:

• An exclusive new research has also been released named as ‘Henley Openness Index ‘which measures “how many nations does a country allow visa-free access to”.
• Here, India was ranked 94 out of a total of 97 ranks for allowing only four countries visa-free access.
• The Top 20 ‘most open’ countries are all small island nations or African states, except for Cambodia.
• At the bottom of the Index were four countries for scoring zero for not permitting visa-free access for any passport — namely, Afghanistan, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, and Turkmenistan.