The strength of the Canadian passport is holding up as one of the 8th highest ranked passports in the world, according to the latest Henley Passport Index.

The organization’s Q2 ranking of passports around the world puts Canada’s passports on par with those of Australia, the Czech Republic, Greece and Malta. All of those countries, including Canada, score 185 points on the index.

The highest-ranked passport was the one issued by Japan, with 193 points.

Singapore and South Korea are in second place with a score of 192. Germany and Spain are in third place with a score of 190.

The United States is one of five countries, including Belgium, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, that narrowly beat Canada by a single point to claim seventh place in the rankings with a score of 186.

The clear difference in having the least desirable passport in the world belongs to Afghanistan, which has only 27 points to rank 112.

Having just beaten Afghanistan for the world’s worst passport are Iraq, which has a 29-point passport, and Syria, with a passport score of 30.

The Henley Passport Index, now 17 years old, updated quarterly, uses data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA) to compare 199 passports across 227 travel destinations and provide a ranking for the top 112 passports that reflect the global mobility of those countries’ passports.

“The total score for each passport is equal to the number of destinations without a visa,” notes the Henley & Partners website.

Canada regularly makes it to the list of countries with the most powerful passports in the world, offering visa-free travel, which is considered a measure of the freedom of a country’s citizens, to 185 destinations.

The Canadian passport hit 2nd place on the Henley Index in 2014, then slipped to 6th in 2016 and stayed there for 4 years. The passport then lost ground against other passports worldwide during the pandemic as public health restrictions and border closures severely limited travel to other destinations.

Last year, however, the Canadian passport rose one place to 8th place and has so far held steady there.