Now that you have decided to apply for Canadian Citizenship, do you know how powerful the Canadian passport is? The Canadian passport is considered one of the most powerful in the world. But how can we know that, how is the Canadian passport ranked among the rest? Passports are ranked with the Henley Passport Index which ranks the power of 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations. The Index presents a ranking of the 199 passports of the world according to the number of countries their holders can travel without having to apply for a visa. It will also consider but not compute the countries where the passport holders can obtain a visa, visitor’ permit or electronic travel authority (ETA) when landing in the destination. As well the points are not granted when a government-approved electronic visa (e-Visa) or government approval for a visa is needed before the departure. With that, the number of countries a specific passport can access becomes its visa-free score. Therefore, the higher the visa-free score, the more powerful the passport is.
In 2019, the Canadian passport was ranked sixth on the Henley Passport Index. Which means that there are 183 countries where all Canadians with a valid passport can enter without having to apply for a visa. The position on the list is tied with other six additional countries that also have visa-free access to those 183 countries. The countries tied with the Canadian passport are Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Even though the Canadian passport is considered the 6th more powerful in the world, there are 15 countries with better scores than the Canadian passport, as you can see below:
Rank | Passport | # of Visa-Free Countries |
1 | Japan and Singapore | 189 |
2 | Finland, Germany and South Korea | 187 |
3 | Denmark, Italy and Luxembourg | 186 |
4 | France, Span and Sweden | 185 |
5 | Austria, Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland | 184 |
6 | Canada, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom and United States | 183 |
7 | Malta | 182 |
8 | Czech Republic | 181 |
9 | Australia, Iceland, Lithuania and New Zealand | 180 |
10 | Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia | 179 |
* Date: July 19, 2019