The Kenyan passport has maintained its steady decline, dropping to 73rd in the latest Henley Passport Index.
This means that the Kenyan passport has dropped five positions from the 68th position it held at the beginning of the year.
Notably, the Henley Passport Index compares the visa-free access of 199 different passports that grant access to 227 travel destinations globally.
According to the latest ranking, holders of the Kenyan passport can only travel visa-free to 70 travel destinations globally.
Of these 70 countries, none of them is in the European Schengen area.
The majority of these visa-free destinations, however, are in Southern and East African nations, including the entire East African Community region.
Over the past two decades, the highest the passport has been ranked is 55th in 2006, while the lowest it has hit is 77th in 2021.
This latest ranking comes just months after President William Ruto announced his commitment to have Kenya become a visa-free country to attract more foreign nationals into the country to boost the economy.
In 2024, he introduced the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to be issued to all visitors entering the country. The cost of the ETA was set at Ksh4,600(USD 30).
According to the President, the decision to abolish visa requirements followed the scientific discovery that Turkana County was the cradle of mankind.
In July, Kenya finally fulfilled its promise of a borderless Africa, scrapping all Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA) requirements for all African countries except Libya and Somalia.
The implementation of this directive means that citizens of these countries can enter the country without prior authorisation, except for Libya and Somalia, due to security reasons.
