Henley & Partners scores each of the 199 passports against 227 destinations using IATA's Timatic database. A passport earns one point for every destination it can enter without a visa, with a visa on arrival, with a visitor's permit, or with an automatically approved electronic travel authorization. The passports are then ranked from the highest total score to the lowest, with tied scores sharing the same rank.

Yes, for scoring purposes. The index treats visa-free entry, visa-on-arrival, visitor's permits and pre-approved electronic travel authorizations (like an eTA or most eVisas) as equally accessible, because in each case a traveler can simply book a flight and go. Destinations that require a visa to be obtained from an embassy or consulate before departure do not add to the score.

Henley & Partners updates the index quarterly to reflect real changes in visa policy around the world, though the headline annual ranking is usually published in January. Because individual countries adjust their visa rules throughout the year, exact scores can shift slightly between updates even when a passport's overall rank position stays the same.

Most countries that aren't visa-free still offer a visa-on-arrival or an eVisa for many nationalities, which is faster and simpler than applying at an embassy. Check our visa-on-arrival countries and eVisa countries guides, or browse visas by policy to see exactly which route applies to your trip.

No — other indexes (such as the Arton Capital Passport Index) use different methodologies and sometimes produce different rankings. We use the Henley Passport Index because it's the longest-running, most widely cited ranking and relies on a single authoritative data source (IATA Timatic) rather than crowd-sourced or self-reported entries.