The 16 countries with the most powerful passports
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Your support makes all the difference.If you have citizenship in Sweden, you have a great deal of travelling power — Swedes can fly to 158 countries without ever showing a visa. This makes international travel cheaper and easier than it is for citizens of many other countries, like those of Afghanistan, who can enter just 24 countries without a visa.
These stark differences are revealed in the Passport Index, which ranks countries based on the number of nations where residents can go without purchasing a visa in advance or on arrival. The global financial advisory firm Arton Capital compiled government data from 193 countries and six territories to create the 2016 ranking.
The US makes the top 16, but that could change over the next four years under the Trump administration, according to Arton Capital CEO John Hanafin. If US foreign-policy relations sour with other countries, like Mexico and Germany, visa-free agreements could freeze or break, which would damage the passport power for Americans.
Here are the 16 highest-ranking countries.
16. The United States — 155 countries
14. Norway — 155 countries
13. Belgium — 155 countries
12. The Netherlands — 155 countries
11. Italy — 155 countries
10. Denmark — 155 countries
9. Singapore — 155 countries
8. The United Kingdom — 156 countries
7. South Korea — 156 countries
6. Spain — 156 countries
5. Switzerland — 156 countries
4. France — 156 countries
3. Finland — 156 countries
2. Sweden — 157 countries
1. Germany — 158 countries
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Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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