There are 27 other countries with passports that are more powerful than Malta’s. Photo: Jason Borg

Malta has the ninth “most powerful” passport in the world, down two places from last year, according to this year’s Passport Index.

Germany has the most powerful passport in the world, with a visa-free score of 157, followed by Sweden in second place with a score of 156. Finland, France, Switzerland, Spain, South Korea and the UK were each given a ranking of 156, sharing the third spot.

Malta, together with Iceland, was given a score of 150. Despite being ranked in the ninth position, as a number of countries were given the same ranking, there are, in fact, 27 other countries with passports that are more powerful.

The index also shows that Afghanistan had the worst-ranking passport in the world, coming in at the 95th place and a ranking of 24.

Also at the bottom end of the scale were the passports for Pakistan and Iraq. At 94th place, that for Pakistan was given a score of 27 while that for Iraq stood at 93rd place with a score 29.

The index is drawn up by combining the ranking for visa-free travel, together with visa-on-arrival ratio, with the country’s score as attributed by the UN Development Programme Human Development Index.

76 per cent of the world’s population are required to obtain a visa prior to departure to Europe

According to the UN World Tourism Organisation, on average, 76 per cent of the world’s population are required to obtain a visa prior to departure to Europe. When Malta ranked seventh last year, Henley & Partners, the main operator of the citizenship-by-investment programme, attributed the ranking to the success of the scheme it managed.

Over the past two years, Malta issued almost 700 passports to wealthy individuals in exchange for cash, generating at least €200 million. The programme requires a €650,000 contribution to a national development fund and an investment of €150,000 in government stocks or bonds.

A spouse or a child costs up to €50,000.

Applicants must also own property worth at least €350,000 in Malta for at least a year

In return, an investor gets the Maltese passport providing visa-free travel to at least 166 countries.