Sri Lanka passport ranked 84th in the world

Friday, 7 December 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Recognition of the Sri Lankan passport has increased by nine notches to 84th in the latest world rankings released this week.

Sri Lanka has visa-free access to 16 countries and visa on arrival to 29 countries, while 153 countries still requires visa. Sri Lanka shares the 84th position with Lebanon and Libya.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has overtaken Singapore and Germany as the country with the world’s most powerful passport. According to Passport Index, UAE passport holders are now able to gain entry to 113 countries without obtaining a prior visa. The Singaporean passport allows visa-free entrance to 127 countries and German passports allow entry without prior visas to 126 countries.

Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, South Korea and the United States come next as the third most powerful passports in the world.

The Passport Index is the world’s most popular online interactive tool, which collects, displays and ranks the passports of the world.

The Passport Index devised by global financial advisory firm Arton Capital looks at three factors: The country’s visa-free score – which includes visa-free and visa on arrival; the visa-free portion of their score versus visa on arrival; and the United Nations Development Program Human Development Index is used as a tie breaker.

A total of 199 passports, consisting of the 193 United Nations member countries and six territories – Taiwan, Macau (SAR China), Hong Kong (SAR China), Kosovo, Palestinian Territory and the Vatican – are considered for the index.

Territories annexed to other countries, such as Norfolk Island, the French Polynesia and British Virgin Islands who do not issue their own passports are not considered as destinations, the index said. (CdeS)