The Singapore passport allows visa-free access to 193 destinations. Photo straitstimes.com

SINGAPORE Singaporeans still hold the world’s most powerful passport, with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 193 destinations out of 227 globally, according to the latest Henley Passport Index released on July 22.

The country retained its first-place ranking despite a slight dip from 195 destinations in the January edition of the index.

Singapore lost visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to Pakistan and Mauritania in West Africa after both switched from visa-on-arrival to e-visa systems.

E-visas, unlike visa-on-arrival arrangements, require travelers to obtain approval before departure and are not counted as visa-free access in the index.

This reduced Singapore’s tally by two points, but it retained its lead, as other top-ranked passports were similarly affected.

Japan and the Republic of Korea are in the second position in the ranking, with access to 190 destinations. Seven European Union countries – Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain – share third place with access to 189 destinations.

Meanwhile, the UK and the US slipped down the index. Once the world’s most powerful passports – the UK in 2015, and the US in 2014, they now rank sixth and 10th, respectively.

The UK offers visa-free access to 186 destinations, while the US 182. According to the Henley & Partners, the US is on the verge of falling out of the top 10 for the first time in the index’s 20-year history.

At the bottom is Afghanistan, at 99th position, with its citizens able to access just 25 destinations without a prior visa. Syria is in 98th place with 27 destinations, followed by Iraq at 97th with 30.

Henley & Partners, a global citizenship and residence advisory firm, compiles the ranking using exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association.

It is published twice a year – in January and July – and tracks the number of destinations passport holders can enter without needing a prior visa. VNA/VNS