Macedonian passport ranks 40th globally, visa-free travel to 129 countries
- The Macedonian passport allows visa-free travel to 129 countries, placing it 40th in the latest Henley & Partners Passport Index.
- Post By Silvana Kocovska
- 11:04, 9 janar, 2025
Skopje, 9 January 2025 (MIA) - The Macedonian passport allows visa-free travel to 129 countries, placing it 40th in the latest Henley & Partners Passport Index.
The Henley Passport Index is the original, authoritative ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. The index is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – the largest, most accurate travel information database – and enhanced by Henley & Partners’ research team.
With historical data spanning 19 years, the Henley Passport Index is the only one of its kind based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA). The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.
North Macedonia shares the 40th position with Montenegro and the Marshall Islands. In the region, the best-ranked countries are Greece in 6th place and Slovenia in 10th. Croatia is 11th, Bulgaria 15th, and Serbia 34th. Albania’s passport ranks 43rd, Bosnia and Herzegovina 44th, and Kosovo 63rd.
Singapore and Japan break away from the group of six countries that shared top spot last year to secure gold and silver, respectively, on the 2025 Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the world’s 199 passports according to the number of destinations they can access visa-free, and is based on exclusive Timatic data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Singapore reclaims its crown as the most powerful passport in the world with visa-free access to 195 out of 227 destinations worldwide, leaving Japan in the runner-up spot with a score of 193 but still ahead of the rest after it regained visa-free access to neighboring China for the first time since the Covid lockdowns.
Several EU member states - France, Germany, Italy, and Spain - drop two places in the ranking to 3rd position, and are joined by Finland and South Korea, which each lost a place over the past 12 months and now have access to 192 destinations with no prior visa required. A seven-nation EU cohort, all with visa-free access to 191 destinations - Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden - share 4th place, while five countries - Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, and the UK - come in 5th with 190 visa-free destinations.
On the other end of the mobility spectrum, Afghanistan, unsurprisingly, remains firmly entrenched at the bottom of the Henley Passport Index, having lost visa-free access to a further two destinations over the past year, creating the largest mobility gap in the index’s 19-year history, with Singaporeans able to travel to 169 more destinations visa-free than Afghan passport holders.
After Afghanistan, the weakest passports on the list are those from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Nepal, the Palestinian territories, Libya and Bangladesh, each of which ranks below North Korea, whose citizens can visit 41 destinations worldwide, according to the ranking.
Photo: screenshot