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According to a new index, Spain has the most powerful passport in the world.

The rankings, compiled by visa information website VisaGuide.World, show Spain overtook Singapore, which took first place in the popular Henley Passport Index published in October.

Japan, which ranks 15th, is the only non-European country to make the top 20 in the VisaGuide index.

Germany ranks third, followed by Italy, France, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary and Luxembourg.

Austria ranks sixteenth, while Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland and Poland complete the top twenty.

How does VisaGuide.World classify passports?

Both the quarterly Henley Passport Index and VisaGuide.World’s Passport Index They look at how many destinations passport holders can access without a visa.

Although he is generally considered an authority in the field, Henley has not yet released his latest rankings.

In October, the rankings showed Singapore in first place, followed by Japan in second place and Finland, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Spain and Sweden in third place.

VisaGuide.World also takes other factors into account, determining the importance of a destination.

The score takes into account the type of entry policy the country has on the passport: visa exemption, ETA, visa on arrival, e-visa, embassy approved visa, travel without passport or entry prohibited. Points are also awarded for a country’s GDP, global strength and tourism development.

Visa-free entry into a country with a high destination score earns your passport more points on the index than entering a country with a low destination score.

Where can Spanish passport holders travel without a visa?

As of December 2023, Spanish passport holders will be able to travel to 160 countries without a visa.

While Singapore citizens can travel to 164 countries, Spain earns more points for the many places you can visit with just an EU ID.

Singaporean passport holders have visa-free entry to 15 countries that Spain does not have. These are Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Djibouti, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Myanmar, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

However, there are 11 countries and territories that Spanish passport holders can access without a visa: Falkland Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, East Timor, Tonga, Tuvalu, Ukraine and Venezuela.

VisaGuide.World does not determine the importance of a destination for each country, but this can also influence the index score.

Germany has visa-free entry to the same 160 countries as Spain (the two countries accept each other), but Spain has easy visa-on-arrival access for Papua New Guinea and Togo, while German passport holders must apply for an e-visa before departure.