TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The latest passport index by British consulting firm Henley & Partners ranked Taiwan as having the 34th most powerful passport in the world in terms of the number of countries that provide its holders visa-free access, well ahead of China, which dropped to 69th.

The Henley Passport Index ranks countries based on the number of destinations their passport holders can access without a prior visa. The company says it derives its data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which the firm claims "maintains the world’s largest and most accurate database of travel information."

In the firm's second-quarter listing for 2022, Taiwan ranked 34th in the world, with access to 145 countries, dropping two spots from its ranking of 32nd in the first quarter. Since the index began in 2006, Taiwan has been ranked as low as 69th, in 2010, and as high as 24th, in 2014.

In Asia, Taiwan ranks ninth behind Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Brunei, and Israel. Globally, Japan took first place, with visa-exempt status for 193 countries, followed by Singapore and South Korea, which tied for second.

Tied for the third spot were Germany and Spain, while fourth place was shared by Finland, Italy, and Luxembourg. Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden tied for fifth place with visa-exempt access to 188 countries.

China, on the other hand, dropped from 64th to 69th place, one slot behind Saudia Arabia and Oman. Only 80 countries offer Chinese passport holders visa-free access, 65 fewer countries than Taiwanese are visa-exempt from.