For five long years, Japan has been sitting pretty in the No.1 position in the Henley Passport Index, which measures global travel freedom in terms of how much visa-free and visa-on-demand access to the world different citizens enjoy.
But for summer 2023, Japan’s been knocked down into third place and the new titleholder is Singapore, whose citizens are able to visit 193 destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free.
And while Asia has long dominated the top of the leaderboard in the index created by London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners, Europe is bouncing back. Germany, Italy and Spain have all moved up into second place with visa-free access to 190 destinations, while Japan and South Korea are joined in the No.3 slot by Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg and Sweden. Citizens from that particular magnificent seven enjoy access to 189 destinations without needing a prior visa.