Singaporeans continue to hold world's most powerful passport in latest ranking
SINGAPORE: Singaporeans continue to 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 Tuesday (July 22).
The Republic retained its first-place ranking despite a slight dip from 195 destinations in the January 2025 edition of the index.
Singapore lost visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to Pakistan and West African country Mauritania after both switched from visa-on-arrival to e-Visa systems.
E-Visas, unlike visa-on-arrival arrangements, require travellers 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.
In second place are Japan and South Korea, with access to 190 destinations. Seven European Union countries share third place with access to 189 destinations - Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain.
The UK and US have slipped down the index, continuing a long-term downward trend.
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 has 182.
The US is on the verge of falling out of the Top 10 for the first time in the index's 20-year history, said Henley & Partners, which compiles the ranking.
At the bottom is Afghanistan, at 99th position, with its citizens able to access just 25 destinations without a prior visa, a stark contrast to the 193 destinations accessible to top-ranked passports.
Syria is in 98th place with 27 destinations, followed by Iraq at 97th with 30.
Over the past six months, India has made the largest jump in the rankings, climbing eight places from 85th to 77th, despite adding only two new visa-free destinations to take its total to 59.
Saudi Arabia has recorded the biggest gain in visa-free access, adding four destinations since January and rising four places to 54th, with a total of 91 visa-free countries.
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.
A spokeswoman for Henley & Partners told The Straits Times that the index is dynamic and changes monthly due to shifting visa policies, with new agreements signed or reversed regularly.
'The January index reflected the scores and ranks at the beginning of the year, and we publish the July updated ranking each year to coincide with the summer holidays in the Northern Hemisphere when there is a significant uptick in travel,' she added.
The index, launched in 2006, now covers 199 passports and 227 destinations. - The Straits Times/ANN
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sinar Daily
3 hours ago
- Sinar Daily
Who makes laundry smell nice? Meet the professional 'noses'
HOLZMINDEN - In the laboratories of German fragrance and flavours giant Symrise, a citrus scent clings to the lab coats of trainees, "noses" who are learning the art of making things smell good. These busy heroes of the world of smells and aromas shape the connection millions of consumers have with everyday items. While at high-end perfume labels, olfactory artists create scents for luxury body sprays, Symrise's experts work on everyday products that might range from mint-flavoured toothpaste to barbeque chips. Smell, a powerful sense that can trigger emotions and memories, and aroma often decide which food or beverage, cleaning or personal hygiene product ends up in the shopping cart. At Symrise's headquarters in Holzminden, a quiet town south of Hanover, each day at the company's in-house perfumery school begins the same way: sniffing out scents from dozens of tiny bottles while blindfolded. "It's just like tuning a musical instrument before you play," said Alicia De Benito Cassado, a 32-year-old former professional pianist from Spain. Her career switch into scent development was a natural step: she made her own perfumes as a teenager to match the poetry and music that she wrote. "For me, not everything has to smell good," she said. "The horror of smell also helps us discover ourselves." But commercial clients demand something different, De Benito Cassado added. "In the end, we need to create scents that are strong, beautiful, powerful and affordable." - Professional sniffers - Being a "nose" is a full-time job and comes with a three-year training programme. The smell of a fabric softener can be composed of 80 compounds, far more than in a premium body perfume and the best noses can make out over 1,000 different odours while blindfolded. Junior perfumers (L-R) Attiya Setai, Shangyun Lyu and Alicia de Benito Cassado hold smell strips which are used to evaluate fragrances in a mixing room at the Symrise company, where perfume oil formulas are developed, in Holzminden, central Germany. Photo by Michael Matthey/AFP Shangyun Lyu, 31, came from China to study at the school and says that a professional sniffer can get by with knowing about 500 scents. Being able to break down odours into their chemical components is key. "As a kid, I just smelled jasmine or gardenia as flowers," he said. "Now, I recognise the chemicals: it's a blend of many elements." Students weigh ingredients down to the milligramme, mix, smell and start over, often by replicating existing smells to understand their structure and then innovate from there. "When developing perfume, it is very important that several people smell it," said 56-year-old master perfumer Marc vom Ende, head of the school. "We all perceive smell differently." - 'Nose has the final say' - Pleasant smells cannot come at any cost and the rules of the game change over time. Lilial, a chemical once prized for its floral and sweet Lily-of-the-Valley notes, has been banned in the European Union since 2022 over fears it can cause skin irritation and damage the reproductive system. Fragrances applied directly to the body have stricter regulations than detergents, said 27-year-old South African trainee Attiya Setai. "We're more restricted in raw materials and must replace banned ingredients with new compliant ones," she said. Tastes also vary across global markets, with Shangyun pointing to the example of Chinese shampoos that sell well with a young clientele there but would struggle in Europe. "Something old-fashioned in one country can be new elsewhere," he said. Cost also enters the equation. Symrise extracts aromatic compounds from wood resin, a by-product of the paper industry, in a move "that makes both economic and environmental sense", said vom Ende. It is hard to be a nose. About 500 perfumers work in the industry and 80 of them at Symrise, which has a workforce of 13,000. The company markets about 30,000 products to clients ranging from confectioners to pet food manufacturers and suncream makers. Symrise's competitors include DSM-Firmenich, headquartered in both Switzerland and the Netherlands, as well as Givaudan, another Swiss firm. Artificial intelligence increasingly plays a role, with computer programmes predicting which fragrances will hit the mark. Still, the machines cannot -- yet -- smell, even if they can understand speech and read text. "We're supported by AI," vom Ende said. "But the nose has the final say". - AFP
The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
'Shameless!' — Netizens slam S'porean who asked why M'sians won't share RON95 subsidy
WITH RON95 petrol expected to drop to RM1.99 per litre soon, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has made it clear: the subsidy is strictly for Malaysians. He stressed that foreigners, including Singaporeans, will have to pay the market price — which could go up to RM2.50 per litre — because only Malaysians are taxpayers and should benefit from the government's subsidy initiatives. ALSO READ: 'Honestly quite absurd' - Singaporean criticises those filling up on RON95 in M'sia But not everyone agrees. A Singaporean netizen recently sparked a Threads debate by questioning Malaysia's fuel subsidy policy. 'Question for the Malaysians of Threads. Why are you against Singaporeans and other nationalities (but specifically Singaporeans) buying RON95 petrol? 'It's high quality and affordable. Why not share with your neighbours? In return we share other things. 'Isn't this called the kampung spirit?' he asked. The comment sparked a flurry of responses from both sides of the Causeway. One netizen called markkhng commented: 'I'm Singaporean and I'm embarrassed by this question. It's their oil, their national product, when it's convenient for you only then you pull out 'kampung spirit'.' 'I'm a Singaporean and am against Singaporean and other nationalities buying RON95 petrol. The Malaysia government susidised it for the Malaysian citizens. Get this right: This is the Malaysians' social benefit,' opined. 'Glad to see so many decent comments from Singaporeans. Many know that it's almost (crime) and fuelling up with RON95 here is akin to stealing our dwindling subsidies. We are not as rich as our neighbours. We do rely on each other but come on, this author's 'suggestion' is downright shameless,' fadhilasatoppi wrote.
The Sun
10 hours ago
- The Sun
Musk's X accuses Britain of online safety ‘overreach'
PARIS: Elon Musk-owned social network X on Friday accused Britain's government of 'overreach' with a new law designed to protect children from harmful online content such as pornography. The Online Safety Act's 'laudable intentions are at risk of being overshadowed by the breadth of its regulatory reach,' X said in a post to its Global Government Affairs account. 'A plan ostensibly intended to keep children safe is at risk of seriously infringing on the public's right to free expression,' it added, arguing that the impact 'shows what happens when oversight becomes overreach'. Beyond the law, X criticised a separate new code of conduct for online platforms as 'parallel and duplicative' as well questioning the free-speech impact of a new police unit tasked with monitoring social media. The social network nevertheless last week introduced formal systems for age verification in response to the British law as well as new rules in Ireland and the wider European Union. Its options range from estimating the age of a user based on the date their account was created or their email address, to requesting a selfie whose age would be determined by artificial intelligence, or uploading an official ID document. Media regulator Ofcom says such age checks -- required since July 25 -- must be 'technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair'. Platforms failing to comply risk fines of up to 18 million pounds ($24 million) or 10 percent of their global revenue -- whichever is larger. Serious infringers could be blocked from British territory. The fight over age verification to access sensitive content in Britain echoes months of debate in France over new rules requiring pornography sites to verify users' ages -- a step also required by many US states. While hailed by child safety campaigners, opponents say such requirements risk compromising legitimate users' privacy -- or even exposing them to scams such as identity theft if the personal details used to verify their age were to be hacked. Many people resort to virtual private networks (VPNs) to get around territorial restrictions on access to online content. The most popular free apps on Apple's UK download store since last week have been VPNs, with one, Proton, reporting earlier this week a 1,800 percent rise in downloads, according to British media. - AFP
