During the first quarter of 2021, the passport of Cyprus became stronger by two positions according to the international Henley Passport Index.
This happened despite the cancellation of the Cyprus investment program after Al Jazeera's movie, and, most surprisingly, thanks to the pandemic.
For a long time, Cyprus has remained a country with one of the lowest incidence rates of Covid-19 in the EU and throughout the world. Thus Cyprus belonged to the "green" category, and passengers arriving from Cyprus did not need to stay in quarantine.
In 2020, the Cyprus passport was ranked 15th. In 2021, the country's position improved by two points and he moved up to 13th place in the ranking. With a Cypriot passport, you can travel without visas to 176 countries of the world.
The Henley & Partners ranking was first published in 2006. Then the passport of Cyprus took the 12th place, which was the best result the country ever had. Since then, the rating of Cyprus has decreased every year, and in 2012 it dropped to the 20th position. In 2013, the Cypriot passport rose again to the 15th position in the ranking. Since then, the Cypriot passport has balanced between 14 and 17 positions.
Now the most strong passport in the world is the Japanese passport, which gives its holders the possibility of visa-free travel to 193 countries of the world. It is followed by Singapore (192 countries).
In third place are Germany and South Korea (191 countries). Greece's passport is ranked 8th in the world. The Czech Republic, Malta and Norway are in the same position. Citizens of these countries can enter 186 countries of the world without visas.
In the last places of the rating are the passports of Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Bangladesh, North Korea. The citizens of these countries are the least fortunate. Visa-free entry to only 20-30 countries is allowed for them.
Overall, the Henley Passport survey covers the passports of 199 countries across 227 travel destinations and evaluates passports in terms of visa-free travel opportunities around the world.
For these purposes, data from the International Air Carriers Association (ΙΑΤΑ) are used.