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The South African passport is the strongest it has been for a decade, and it now ranks among the top 50 in the world for the first time since 2014.
This was revealed in Henley & Partners’ annual Henley Passport Index released in January, which ranks the world’s passports according to the number of destinations they can access visa-free.
The index is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – the largest travel information database – and enhanced by Henley & Partners’ research.
According to this data, South Africans can access 106 global destinations visa-free or by obtaining a visa on arrival. This secured the country’s 48th place in Henley & Partners’ ranking.
Many of these visa-free destinations are fellow developing countries in Africa and South America, with a handful of Middle Eastern countries on the list.
South Africans can also travel to a few popular Asian holiday destinations visa-free, including Vietnam and Thailand, while travellers to Indonesia require a visa on arrival.
In comparison, the world’s strongest passport, Singapore’s, offers 195 visa-free destinations.
Crucially, the Singaporean passport grants its holders visa-free access to some of the world’s most developed countries, such as the USA, all Western European states, Australia and Japan.
Several European states – France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — drop two places in the ranking to 3rd position and are joined by Finland and South Korea.
These countries each lost a place over the past 12 months and now have access to 192 destinations visa-free.
The rest of the index’s Top 10 is dominated mainly by European countries, except for Australia (6th place with 189 destinations), Canada (7th place with 188 destinations), and the US (9th place with 186 destinations).
The United Arab Emirates became the first and only Arab state to ever make it into the upper echelons of the rankings, placing 10th.
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 two destinations in 2024.
This has created 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.
The strength of the South African passport has steadily declined since reaching 35th place on the Henley ranking in 2009.
Since then, the country has hovered around 50th in the world, reaching its worst ranking of 58 in 2021.
As the South African passport has weakened, it has been surpassed by other African nations such as the Seychelles and Mauritius.
These two countries rank 25th and 29th in the world, respectively, and offer their passport holders access to over 150 destinations visa-free.
African passports are in for a difficult few years, with the Trump administration vowing to reinstate and expand the restrictive immigration policies of his first term.
This may include bringing back travel bans that affected some African countries and introducing visa curbs that could negatively impact foreign students and skilled migrants, Henley & Partners said in its Global Mobility Report.
Apart from this, the Trump administration may pressure US allies to be stricter on travel from African countries as well, potentially diminishing the power of passports from the continent.
Henley & Partners said this would likely result in African countries relying more heavily on neighbouring states and Asian counterparts for trade and travel.
Trump’s policies will also weaken the US passport, which has fallen several places in recent years to ninth.
Tariffs, expulsions, and stricter travel restrictions are likely to result in the US’ ranking dropping further as countries largely view visa-free access and travel requirements as reciprocal.
source:Good news for people with a South African passport – Daily Investor
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