You use your passport when you’re going on holiday. When you’re getting a new job and need to prove your identity. Maybe you even use it to buy alcohol and cigarettes if you’re freshly 18 and don’t want to pay for a provisional licence yet. You use it freely and without concern, but you might not have realised that that is actually a bit of a privilege.
Every passport is different. Each one grants you access to different countries with varying levels of ease, and there’s people who spend a lot of time researching where on Earth is blessed with the strongest and weakest ones, and even ranking every single one.
Arton Capital is one of those companies. The company has created a passport index, which it updates regularly, which measures the passports of 199 countries and regions in terms of how many places they can enter visa-free, or obtain a visa for on arrival, and then use those stats to generate an overall ‘mobility score’ (MS) for each passport. Currently in the top spot is the United Arab Emirates, which can get into 133 nations without prior warning, and had an overall MS of 180, followed by Spain, which can get into more countries, at 134, but just missed out on number one with an MS of 179.
But where are us Brits? Well, the truth is that we’ve taken a bit of a tumble in Arton’s index. Although we can get into 118 places without needing a visa, other countries are simply doing better than us, causing us to fall down a few spots in the overall rankings. Our MS is 174, and we can access 125 places without a visa, placing us in 32nd. This is 10 spots below last year’s peak of 22, but it has little to do with us losing out and much more to do with other places improving their scores, as our MS only fell by one point.
We also have the same score as a few other countries, including Singapore, Malta, Canada, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, and Australia, all of which are above the USA, which has a score of 173. None of this, however, is set in stone – the equally respected Henley Passport Index places Singapore at the top, and the UAE in joint ninth, even below the UK.
At the bottom of Arton’s ranking is Syria, which has a score of 40 and only grants citizens visa-free access to nine nations. Maybe we should hold off on complaining about our position.
You can have a look at the full Arton chart here, with an interactive map. And don’t worry – no passports are needed to wander through this version of the world.
Where to next?
For more passport rankings, check out where the UK places in lists by Henley and VisaGuide.
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