Pak passport ranking improves by six notches

ISLAMABAD: There is good news for Pakistanis who like to travel as the Passport Index, the world’s leading real-time passport ranking tool, has ranked the country’s travel document at 192 in the Individual Passport Power Ranking (IPPR) 2020 and it is a significant improvement from last year. The Pakistani passport’s ranking jumped six places higher from the 198th position in 2019, foreign media reported.

IPPR is compiled by combining both the Mobility Score (MS), the number of countries one can visit without a visa, or a visa on arrival can be obtained, and United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index (UNDP HDI). The higher the Mobility Score, the better the IPPR ranking. UNDP HDI serves as the deciding factor in case passports have the same Mobility Score.

The Pakistani passport has a Mobility Score of 33, and those who hold one can access seven countries visa-free and get a visa on arrival in 26 nations. Japan with a Mobility Score of 116, has been ranked at the top of the IPPR 2020 while Iraq with a Mobility Score of 26 has been ranked at the bottom of the list that has 199 countries. The top 10 passports on the IPPR 2020 in descending order are: Japan, New Zealand, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, Ireland, South Korea, Switzerland, Australia and Denmark. Despite the improvement from last year, Pakistan still remains in the bottom 10 countries on the list.