"Are You Korean? Just Go In"... Korean Passport Power Has Grown

1st Place: Singapore, Japan, France, and 3 Other Countries
South Korea Rises One Spot from 3rd to 2nd Last Year
Visa-Free Entry to 193 Countries Available

Global Passport Power Viewed on a World Map. The darker the color, the stronger the passport power (meaning the higher the number of countries with visa-free entry).
[Image source=Henley Passport Index]

Afghanistan, Algeria, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, C?te d'Ivoire, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nauru, Nigeria, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Yemen. Except for these countries, Koreans can enter anywhere in the world without a visa by holding a passport.

The South Korean passport rose one rank to 2nd place in the global passport power ranking for 2024. Currently, with a South Korean passport, one can enter 193 out of 227 countries worldwide without a visa. On the 10th (local time), CNBC reported that for the first time since the Henley Passport Index began ranking 19 years ago, six countries tied for the number one passport power.

The Henley Passport Index is an annual ranking published since 2006 by Henley & Partners, an international exchange specialist headquartered in London, UK, based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). It sums up how many countries a passport holder can visit visa-free, ranking the so-called 'passport power.'

South Korea tied for 2nd place with Finland and Sweden

This year, six countries ranked first. Japan and Singapore maintained the top spot for five consecutive years, while the other four countries were European nations: Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. These six countries ranked joint first with visa-free access to 194 countries.

South Korea ranked joint 2nd with Finland and Sweden, each with visa-free access to 193 countries. The top 10 countries differed by just one visa-free country each, mostly European nations. Joint 3rd place included Austria, Denmark, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Joint 4th place included Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, each with visa-free access to 191 countries.

South Korea ranked joint 2nd with Finland and Sweden, with visa-free entry to 193 countries. The top 10 countries each differed by one visa-free entry country. Most of them were European countries.
[Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@]

Greece, Malta, and Switzerland ranked joint 5th with visa-free access to 190 countries, while the Czech Republic, Poland, and Oceania countries Australia and New Zealand ranked joint 6th with 189 countries. The United States and Canada, along with Hungary, ranked joint 7th with visa-free access to 188 countries.

Joint 8th place included Estonia and Lithuania, joint 9th place included Latvia, Slovakia, and Slovenia, each with visa-free access to 186 countries. Iceland ranked 10th with visa-free access to 185 countries.

On the other hand, Afghanistan, ranked lowest in passport power, allows visa-free entry to only 28 countries, and Syria allows visa-free entry to 29 countries, one more than Afghanistan. Iraq allows visa-free entry to 31 countries, and Pakistan to 34 countries.

Christian K?lin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and creator of the passport index, stated, "Although travel liberalization has become a major trend over the past 20 years, the gap between the highest and lowest passport power countries has widened to an all-time high. The average number of visa-free countries increased significantly from 58 in 2006 to 111 this year, but wealth disparity among countries has deepened," he pointed out.