A Taiwan passport enables its holder to enter 141 destinations visa-free, ranking 33rd among 199 countries and regions on this year’s Henley Passport Index.
Taiwan shared the same ranking as Peru, a slight improvement from 35th place last year, the index released yesterday by citizenship consultancy firm Henley & Partners showed.
Since the company started releasing annual rankings 19 years ago, Taiwan has climbed from 55th to 33rd place.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan’s ranking dropped to its lowest point, at 69th, in 2010, and reached its highest position, 24th, in 2014.
However, Taiwan’s position has stayed relatively steady at around 30th place since 2015, the report said.
Singapore rose from second to first place in this year’s rankings, with visa-free access to 195 destinations. The city-state has ranked first or second annually since 2018.
Following Singapore were France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain, tied in second place with visa-free access to 192 destinations each.
Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden tied at third place, with 191 countries or regions not requiring holders to apply for visas in advance.
Next up were Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the UK, tied in fourth place with visa-free access to 190 destinations.
Placing fifth were Australia and Portugal, whose passport holders can travel to 189 destinations visa-free.
Hong Kong ranked 18th with visa-exemptions to 170 destinations, while China placed 59th with 85 countries and regions.
The Henley Passport Index rankings are calculated based on how many countries or areas a passport allows its holder to enter with no visa required.
The index compares 199 passports’ access to 227 travel destinations based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association, “the largest, most accurate travel information database,” according to Henley & Partners.
Based in London, Henley & Partners is “the global leader in residence and citizenship by investment,” a statement on its official Web site says.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS