CNN travel | The world’s most powerful passports for 2021

Germany has the highest-ranking European passport.

(CNN) — If there was an Olympics of passports, Japan wouldn’t just be hosting it — it’d be winning the whole competition.

The Henley Passport Index, which has been regularly monitoring the world’s most travel-friendly passports since 2006, has released its latest rankings and analysis.

As the index doesn’t take temporary restrictions into account, Japan is once again top of the leaderboard, with its passport offering visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 193 destinations around the world.

However, the Henley & Partners report says, in the first quarter of 2021 international mobility was still only 12% of its pre-pandemic levels, meaning “the gulf between theoretical and actual travel access offered by even high-ranking passports remains significant.”  —read more—