The Irish passport has been ranked as the joint sixth most powerful passport in the world for 2023 according to the Henley Passport Index.
The Irish passport is ranked as the sixth most powerful passport along with the UK, French, and Portuguese passports.
The Irish passport outranks the US passport by just one spot.
The Henley Passport Index (HPI) describes itself as the original, authoritative ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa and is based on exclusive and official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The index creates scores based on the visa-free access of 199 different passports to 227 travel destinations. For each travel destination, if no visa is required, then a score of 1 is allocated for that passport.
Ireland, as well as the UK, France, and Portugal, received a score of 187 for 2023, landing it in joint sixth place.
Japan was ranked in the top spot for 2023 with a score of 193, while Singapore and South Korea came in second with a score of 192.
Ireland has been in the top ten of the world's most powerful passports on the Henley Passport Index since 2006. The Irish passport had its highest ranking, second place, from 2006 - 2009, and its lowest ranking, seventh place, in 2010.
The Irish passport's position in the 2023 ranking remains unchanged compared to the 2022 ranking when the Irish passport also ranked joint-sixth and offered access to 187 different countries and territories.
The 2023 Henley Passport Index comes not long after Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that more than 1 million Irish passports were issued in 2022, a new record.
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