Today's Edition
ALLAN JACOB (ABU DHABI)
Liberal tourism and business policies, smart diplomacy, and a sound economic outlook driven by booming trade has enabled the UAE passport to break into the top 10 of the Henley Passport Index of the world’s most powerful passports to rank 9th this year.
The UAE passport’s ascent on the charts has been rapid as it climbed 53 places from 62nd position in the index last year, to ninth in 2024. The country has added a whopping 152 destinations since 2006 when the index was launched. This year, it scored an impressive visa-free score of 185 to also top countries in the Middle East.
Henley & Partners CEO, Dr. Juerg Steffen said the UAE passport has gained strength in such a short period due to the visionary leadership that has powered a diversification policy. “This is the result of deliberate and concerted efforts by the Emirati government to position the UAE as a global hub for business, tourism, and investment,” he said in a statement.
He said research by Henley and Partners has consistently shown a strong “correlation between a country’s visa-free score and its economic prosperity”. Steffen added that nations with higher visa-free scores tend to enjoy greater “GDP per capita, increased foreign direct investment, and more robust international trade relationships”.
Singapore made a comeback to emerge as the most powerful passport in the world, with its citizens enjoying travel to 195 destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free. France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain take joint second place. Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, South Korea, and Sweden are joint third in the ranking based on official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The UK remains in fourth for place along with Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland. The US passport’s slide continues as it dropped to eight spot just ahead of the UAE. The Afghanistan passport is the weakest on the list, according to the index.
“The general trend over the past two decades has been towards greater travel freedom, with the global average number of destinations travelers are able to access visa-free nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 111 in 2024,”said Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners.
