The Kenyan passport has dropped one place to rank as the 68th most powerful travel document globally, down from position 67 last year, with the number of countries that Kenyans can visit without a visa or obtain one on arrival reducing to 74 from 76 as of January last year.
The latest ranking from the Henley Passport Index Report also shows that Kenya ranks ninth among African peers behind Seychelles, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Malawi.
Seychelles, which is ranked 25th globally, emerged as position one in Africa in the annual rankings produced in cooperation with the International Air Transport Association (Iata).
Singapore’s passport is the strongest globally, allowing holders visa-free access to 195 countries, followed by Japan, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Spain, all of which grant visa-free access to 192 countries.
Afghanistan’s passport ranks the lowest, only allowing holders to visit 26 countries visa-free. It comes immediately below Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, in that order.
“The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations. The Henley Passport Index is considered the standard reference tool for global citizens and sovereign states when assessing where a passport ranks on the global mobility spectrum,” reads the report.
In 2015, Kenya first made public the decision to roll out new chip-embedded passports for its citizens in efforts aimed at taming rampant forgery and impersonation of holders.
The electronic passport was initially to be launched in December 2016, but the unveiling was over the years extended multiple times.
The government, however, finally set December 2022 as the deadline for phasing out the old-generation passports, with the move being part of a binding commitment to migrate to the new East African e-passport.
Kenya has been banking on the new East African passport to improve the strength of its travel document.
