Strength of New Zealand passport outranks Australia once again

While local political leaders bicker about cabanas on the beach, diplomats across the ditch have been busy at work ensuring the strength of New Zealand’s passport trumps Australia’s in 2025.
That’s according to the latest annual index released by investment and migration advisory Henley & Partners, which has ranked the Kiwi passport the equal fifth-most powerful in the world, with Australia stranded a tier below in sixth.
As per the firm’s analysis, New Zealand passport-holders are entitled to ‘visa-free’ access to 190 out of the 227 territories assessed around the world, whereas Australians can only avoid the costs and rigmarole of visa-free passage to 189 global locations.
A consistent feature for most of the past decade, Singapore and Japan once again occupy the top two spots, with a dozen Western European countries sharing third and fourth place on the rankings. New Zealand, however, has jumped up one rung into fifth, to now sit alongside the likes of Switzerland and the UK, while Australia languishes down in sixth spot on par with Greece.
Ultimately, the sum-total difference between the two antipodean rivals in travel administration might boils down to Chile, which shares a reciprocal visa arrangement with New Zealand but not Oz. The reason for this discrepancy is unclear, although the cosy pair are effectively territorial neighbours, in Antarctica, and in the sense that Chile is the closest border to New Zealand’s east.
What may surprise some Aussies though, New Zealand’s international flex in outranking Australia on the passport power list isn’t historically abnormal at all. Dating back a decade to 2015, when New Zealand peaked globally in fourth spot, Australia has only once bested its Tasman cousin, in 2018, before scrapping to at least draw level again last year in a post-Covid surge up the ladder.
The Openness Index
For any Kiwis preparing to gloat however, there’s one caveat to consider. When it comes to diplomatic give-and-take, Australia remains well ahead of the ledger. Here, the much less heralded ‘Openness Index’, which basically presents the data in reverse, ranks Australia as one of the world’s tightest borders, openly accessible to tourists from just 34 countries compared to almost double that for NZ.
Indeed, while the Australian prime minister lambastes the entitlement displayed by beach-hogging bogans as ‘un-Australian’, the travel privileges afforded to its citizens is perhaps the most imbalanced of any developed nation in the world. Australia’s percentage-gap in in- and out-bound allowances equates to 66.5 points, compared to under 60 for both Canada and the US.
This translates to just 17 percent of people from the world map having a relatively stress-free time when booking their flights downunder, as against the 84 percent who are burdened with providing additional documentation in the hope of getting let in. Kiwis might have an equivalent freedom of movement, but it’s counterbalanced by a 30 percent rate of foreign nationals who can enter their country largely unimpeded.
Still, the one subject Australians and New Zealanders can possibly unite on is the dramatic downfall in passport power of their mother country and joint sporting nemesis, the UK. Up until a decade ago, British citizens could basically go wherever they pleased, enjoying the fruits of a former colonial empire on which ‘the sun never set’. Now, they have to apply to be allowed back into India.
Beyond ANZ
Elsewhere, the US has also experienced a significant decline in passport power over the past decade, falling from first to ninth in the space of just ten years in a dramatic dip only eclipsed by the current pariah state of Venezuela. Meanwhile, the UAE has continued its rapid rise up the rankings over that same period, to now sit within the top ten after previously being ranked 55th in the world.
In the end, perhaps the most ironic element of New Zealand’s victory over Australia in the passport stakes is in the comparative travel rates between its two sets of citizens. A 2023 study from US think-tank the Pew Research Center concluded that Aussies are the fifth-most adventurous globe-trotters in the world in terms of overseas experience, while not even bothering to survey Kiwi citizens.