In the rankings of the most powerful passports in the world, Moldova takes the 88th spot and among the CIS countries has a better position than Russia, which comes 94th, and also than other ex-Soviet countries, IPN reports, with reference to VisaGuide.World - a passport ranking system that evaluates the passports of 199 countries and territories based on various factors to determine their strength.
Belarus ranks 107th, with Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan being lower in the list, with the last country bending the list in the 167th place.
Among the CIS member countries, only the passport of Georgia has a higher border crossing capacity than the Moldovan one.
The Baltic countries that gained independence simultaneously with Moldova, but managed things differently, show other results. The Lithuanian passport is ranked 24th, the Estonian passport 30th, while the Latvian passport 33rd in the world.
Romania ranks 36th and Bulgaria 39th by the strength of their passports. Holders of a Romanian passport can enter 111, while of the Bulgarian passport - 106 countries without needing a visa.
Moldovan citizens can go to 89 states without visas.
According to VisaGuide.World, the Spanish passport is the most powerful passport in the world as of January 2024. It is followed by the German, Singaporean, Italian, and French passports respectively, to complete the top-five list of strongest passports for 2024.
The U.S. is in the 40th position, with access to 144 states, while the UK is in the 28th place.
Somalia comes last with 10 countries to which the citizens of this state can go without a visa. Afghanistan and Syria are close to Somalia, with seven countries that the citizens of these countries can visit visa-free.