Rabat – The Moroccan passport is positioned at the 85th place in the Henley & Partners world ranking for 2021.
The global gap, as measured by freedom of movement, has increased following the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a staggering drop in the power of Moroccan passports.
In this year’s world ranking of the most powerful passports, the Moroccan passport allows access to 63 countries visa free. Back in 2020, it ranked in 76th place with 64 visa free destinations.
The global gap in freedom of travel has never been wider, according to the latest report from Henley & Partners.
The Henley Passport Index is based on data provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and has been tracking the most powerful passports since 2006.
The report indicates that increasing travel restrictions introduced in the last 18 months of the pandemic have resulted in global mobility to decline at its fastest rate in the 16-year history of the index.
The index does not take into account temporary restrictions. For example, nationals of Japan and Singapore can, in theory, go visa-free to 192 destinations and top the index.
In contrast, nationals of Afghanistan, who are at the bottom of the index, can only access 26 countries without needing a visa.
Moroccan citizens still face major administrative hurdles when traveling abroad. Prior to the pandemic, the Moroccan passport allowed for limited visa-free destinations. The current power of the kingdom’s passport has been heavily undermined by the pandemic.
