Indian Passport rises by 3 ranks to 80th spot in 2024 Henley Passport Index

Henley & Partners have just released their 2024 Passport Rankings and India's passport ranks 80th in the in the list in 2024, a rise by 3 ranks since last year. At 80th rank, citizens of India can travel to 62 countries without a visa, including popular tourist destinations like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. India shares its current rank with Uzbekistan while neighboring Pakistan is positioned at 101st.

In 2024, an unprecedented six countries share the top spot with visa-free access to a record-breaking number of destinations. Four EU member states—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—join Singapore and a resurgent Japan in boasting the most powerful passports in the world, with their citizens able to visit an astonishing 194 destinations out of 227 around the globe visa-free. This is the highest number recorded since the Henley Passport Index began tracking global travel freedoms 19 years ago. 

Towards the end of 2023, Japan lost its spot at the top of the passport ranking for the first time in five years, overtaken by Singapore. At the bottom of the index is Afghanistan in 104th position with visa-free travel to just 28 destinations, just behind Syria and Iraq. The least powerful passport in the world is Afghanistan. It is followed by Syria (103), Iraq (102), Pakistan (101) and Yemen (100).

This is the ranking of top 150 countries in the 2024 Henley Passport Index:

Over the past decade no country has climbed higher up the index than the UAE. From a 2014 ranking of 55th it has added 106 visa-free destinations to its passport, leaping 44 places to 11th with access to 183 destinations. Other big climbers are Ukraine and China, gaining 21 places each over the past decade. Ukraine is now 32nd with 148 visa-free destinations and China is 62nd with access to 85 destinations, both up two spots on last year. While Russia has improved 24 destinations over the past decade, its visa-free score and ranking has barely shifted since 2017, and it now sits in 51st place with access to 119 destinations.

Christian H Kaelin, chairman of Henley & Partners and the creator of the passport index highlighted the widening global mobility gap between countries. Despite an overall trend toward increased travel freedom over the past two decades, the disparity between the top and bottom of the index has reached an all-time high. Mr Kaelin said, "The average number of destinations travelers are able to access visa-free has nearly doubled from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024."

The Henley Passport Index is a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom allowed by those countries' ordinary passports for their citizens. It started in 2006 as Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index and was changed and renamed in January 2018.

The index annually ranks 199 passports of the world by the number of countries that their holders can travel to without requiring a visa. The number of countries that a specific passport can access becomes its visa-free "score". In collaboration with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and using official data from their global database, Henley & Partners analyzes the visa regulations of almost all the world's countries and territories since 2006.