The first two first places in the world are traditionally occupied by Japan and Singapore. Their passport score is 89.76 and 89.65 points out of 100, respectively. But in third place — Italian passport, it is the best in Europe.
Other EU countries follow Italy: Germany — fourth in the list of the best passports in the world, and Spain — fifth.
Interestingly, every second position up to 22nd place (New Zealand) is occupied by passports of EU or Schengen countries.
Other Europeans, while not in the top 20, generally perform well, with 14 European countries ranked between 21 and 40.
One of the main reasons for the popularity of EU citizenship lies in the large number of countries that Europeans can visit at all without the need for a passport — privileges that no other passport in the world offers, not even Japanese and Singaporean.
An indicative fact is that no country in the world has banned entry with an EU passport. For comparison, take the United States, whose passports are prohibited in three countries — in Cuba, North Korea and Syria. With a South Korean passport, they are not allowed into seven countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Ukraine.
Well, the most unwanted passport in the world today is the passport of Kosovo. It is not even recognized by those 15 countries in the world, including several EU countries whose citizens themselves can enter Kosovo without a visa.
For most EU passport holders, only 28 countries out of almost 200 require traditional visas. True, only one of them is significant — Japan.
Here are the places in Europe in the world passport ranking:
- Italy
- Germany
- Spain
- Sweden
- Finland
- Denmark
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- Malta
- Norway
- Netherlands
- Belgium
- Portugal
- Switzerland
- France
- Greece
- Ireland
- Hungary