(AURN News) — The power of the U.S. passport isn’t what it used to be.
For years, carrying a U.S. passport meant near-unlimited access to the world. Not anymore. A new ranking from Henley & Partners shows America has slipped out of the top 10 for the first time, landing at number 12 in its 2025 Passport Index, based on data from the International Air Transport Association.
It now sits at number 12, sharing that spot with Malaysia and just ahead of Romania, out of 199 passports and 227 travel destinations ranked. It marks the latest step down for a document once considered the world’s most powerful — a continued slide from the years when the American passport regularly held the top position.
The U.S. passport was number one in 2006, and the next year it came in second. By 2008, it was third. It later returned to number one in 2014, but by last year, it had fallen to seventh.
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