The Canadian passport ranks below 22 countries for visa-free access to countries around the world, according to London, England-based Henley & Partners's 2025 ranking, released today.
This is a slight improvement, compared with last January, when the Canadian passport ranked below 25 countries on that measure. Malta, Poland and Czechia are no longer ahead of Canada on Henley's list.
Four countries altered requirements for Canadians with two newly making entry visa-free, while two invoked visa requirements, according to Henley.
The result is that Canadians can enter 188 countries visa-free (or visa-on-arrival) today, just as they could one year ago, the consultancy's report said.
Egypt and Brazil are the two countries to remove visa restrictions on Canadians while Gabon and Togo newly require Canadians to have visas, Henley determined.
Egypt has gone back and forth on allowing Canadians to enter visa-free. It removed Canadians' ability to enter with a visa on arrival in 2023. and then reinstated that privilege in 2024, according to Henley.
The other country that Henley considers as having removed a visa restriction on Canadians in the past year is Brazil. There could be an asterisk on this, however, because the Brazilian government has simply punted into the future the date for which it now plans to require Canadians to have a visa. Its most recent announcement was that Canadians will start needing visas to enter the country starting April 10.
Brazil may well push that requirement further into the future. Last January, BIV reported that Brazil was going to start requiring that Canadians have visas to enter the country starting in April 2024.
Visa-free access between Brazil and Canada has been a political football for years.
Canada in in 2017 initiated an electronic-visa program for so-called "low-risk" Brazilians, which remains in effect today.
In 2019, Brazil's then-president Jair Bolsonaro announced that Canadian citizens, along with Americans, would no longer be required to have a visa to visit his country. That call prompted Canadian tourism officials to urge the federal government to reciprocate and fully eliminate its visa requirements for all Brazilians.
Brazilians still need either the electronic visa, or other visa to enter Canada, however. The situation is the same in the U.S. and Australia, and citizens of those countries are also set to need visas starting April 10.
Here is Henley's ranking of the top 25 countries for visa-free access to other nations
No. 1, to 195 countries: Singapore;
No. 2, to 193 countries: Japan;
No. 3, to 192 countries (tie): Finland, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Spain;
No. 9, to 191 countries (tie):: Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden;
No. 16, to 190 countries (tie): Belgium, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland and United Kingdom;
No. 21, to 189 countries (tie): Australia and Greece; and
No. 23, to 188 countries (tie) Canada, Malta and Poland.
Czechia and Hungary came next, with visa-free access to 187 countries.
The U.S. was in the following group, tied for 28th, along with Estonia, with visa-free access to 186 countries.
Afghanistan ranked last, with visa-free access to 26 countries.
Only 22 of the world’s 199 passports have declined on the Henley Passport Index ranking during the past decade, according to the residency and citizenship-planning consultancy.
Venezuela has fallen the most since 2015, losing visa-free access to 15 nations, according to Henley.
The U.S. came next, losing access to seven countries in the past 10 years.
Then came Vanuatu, where citizens lost visa-free access to six countries.
U.K. citizens lost access to four nations.
Canada ranks tied for fifth on this list of countries that have lost visa-free access during the past decade, as there are three fewer nations where citizens can enter visa-free, compared with 2015, according to Henley. The other countries tied with Canada, where there are three fewer visa-free countries for citizens to visit today versus 2015, are Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) and Yemen.
Arton Capital has a competing passport index, although it has a more complex methodology for ranking passports that is not as simple as visa-free access. Its 2025 ranking, based on what it calls a total mobility score, has Canada behind 29 other nations.
