SINGAPORE: Japan starts 2023 with the world’s most powerful passport, allowing visa-free entry to 193 global destinations, according to the latest Henley Passport Index, which the country tops for the fifth consecutive year.
That does not mean the passport is widely used, even as travel rebounds from the Covid-19 pandemic. Only 24 million valid Japanese passports were in circulation at the end of 2021, according to the latest available figures from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That is down more than 3 million from the year before and means that less than 20% of the population held the travel document.
