{"id":100996,"date":"2015-10-13T13:11:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T11:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=100996"},"modified":"2015-10-13T17:11:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T15:11:59","slug":"the-worlds-best-and-worst-passports-to-own-including-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/100996\/the-worlds-best-and-worst-passports-to-own-including-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The world’s best and worst passports to own – including South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henley & Partners has launched its Visa Restrictions Index for 2015, showing which countries have the best passports when it comes to freedom of travel.<\/p>\n

Although the world is becoming ever more globalized, there remains a huge disparity in levels of travel freedom between countries.<\/p>\n

Visa requirements define and shape individuals’ ability to travel across borders.<\/p>\n

The report<\/a> shows that two countries have held their position in the top spot with visa-free access to 173 countries out of a possible 218 – Germany and the UK.<\/p>\n

Finland, Sweden and the US all dropped to 2nd place.<\/p>\n

The four worst passports in the world remain Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Countries are ranked according to the total number of other countries which they can access visa-free access.<\/p>\n

The top most powerful passports in the world are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Germany and United Kingdom,<\/strong> with access to 173 countries<\/li>\n
  2. Finland, Sweden<\/strong> and USA, with access to 172 countries<\/li>\n
  3. Denmark, France<\/strong>, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands<\/strong>, and Norway, with access to 171 countries.<\/li>\n
  4. Belgium<\/strong>, Canada, New Zealand, Portugal<\/strong>, and Spain, with access to 170 countries.<\/li>\n
  5. \u00a0Austria<\/strong>, Ireland, Singapore,<\/strong> and Switzerland, with access to 169 countries.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The worst passports in the world are:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Afghanistan,<\/strong> with access to 25 countries<\/li>\n
    2. Iraq, with access to 29 countries<\/li>\n
    3. Somalia<\/strong>, with access to 30 countries<\/li>\n
    4. Pakistan, with access to 31 countries<\/li>\n
    5. \u00a0Syria<\/strong>, with access to 33 countries<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Africa<\/h3>\n

      The top ranking country in Africa is Seychelles\u00a0-an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean off East Africa, with a population of 90,000 people. Seychelles citizens have access to 129 countries.<\/p>\n

      Mauritius is second on the list, with 124, and South Africa is third, with access to 95 countries. Botswana, Kenya and Namibia follow suit.<\/p>\n

      According to Henley & Partners, the UAE is the highest mover, up 15 places and adding 37 to its score in 2015. The dramatic climb can be attributed to a new agreement with the EU for visa-free travel to 36 countries including the 26 Schengen area states, which was made public in May this year.<\/p>\n

      22 countries moved up in the rankings in 2015 including: Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Iceland, Zealand, Norway, Samoa, San Marino, Slovakia, and Slovenia, among others.<\/p>\n

      Sierra Leona saw the biggest drop, losing 24 places, while Guinea and Liberia had the next biggest fall, down 21 places, while war torn Syria lost 16 places.<\/p>\n

      More on passports<\/h3>\n

      The most powerful passports in the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

      Why more South Africans are leaving the country<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

      More South Africans want to leave the country<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Henley & Partners has launched its Visa Restrictions Index for 2015 showing which countries have the best passports when it comes to freedom of travel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":94011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,10004],"class_list":["post-100996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline","tag-henley-partners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100996"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101048,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100996\/revisions\/101048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}