A new global passport ranking is out and it’s bad news for Canadian travellers

Many Canadians tend to take their passport for granted, and for a long time there was every reason to. It’s long been one of the stronger travel documents out there.

But a new global ranking suggests that standing has slipped, at least when it comes to actually getting around.

The report in question is the 2026 Global Passport Index, published this week by Global Citizen Solutions, a London firm that advises people on residency and citizenship. Now in its fifth year, it ranks 199 countries on the following three things: how freely you can travel, how appealing the country is to investors, and its overall quality of life.

Canada came in 13th overall, and the report lumps it in with the passports that have fallen out of the global top 10 over the past five years, next to the United States and New Zealand.

Travel is where Canada takes the hit

That 13th-place finish is actually a little generous. Canada holds up mostly thanks to quality of life, where it ranked 8th in the world, plus a respectable 22nd for investment. Travel freedom drags things down. On that measure, Canada sits all the way down at 37th.

Before you panic about your summer plans, it’s worth knowing what that number actually measures. This index doesn’t simply tally up how many countries you can breeze into visa-free. It weighs destinations by how desirable they are and accounts for who lets whom in, so 37th says more about where Canada sits in that bigger picture than it does about any stamps disappearing from your passport.

For context, Canadian passport holders can enter 181 countries without a visa, which is down from 184 in July 2025.

The US had it much worse

If it’s any consolation, our neighbours to the south took the harder fall. The United States held the number one spot as recently as 2021, then slid all the way to 12th, the steepest decline of any G7 country in the index’s history.

Its travel ranking got hit the hardest, tumbling from 10th to 41st, thanks in part to countries like Brazil bringing back visa requirements for American travellers last year.

Who’s on top

The top of the list is almost entirely European. Sweden held onto first for a third year running, and nine of the ten strongest passports belong to European countries. The lone exception is Singapore, which actually ranked first in the world for pure travel freedom.

Here’s the global top 10 for 2026:

1. Sweden
2. Switzerland
3. Finland
4. Germany
5. Denmark
6. Netherlands (tied)
7. Ireland
8. United Kingdom
9. Norway
10. Singapore