United States document photos online

For two decades the United States held a coveted spot among the world's ten most powerful travel documents, but in October 2025 the Henley Passport Index recorded something unprecedented: the American passport slipped to 12th place, tied with Malaysia, with visa-free access to 180 of 227 destinations, behind Singapore, South Korea and Japan. The book itself remains a marvel of security craft, with microprinting on nearly every page and hidden images that bloom only under ultraviolet light. Yet the country that pioneered birthright citizenship for anyone born on its soil ranks just 78th on Henley's own openness scale, granting visa-free entry to only 46 nationalities.

• Passport power In October 2025 the U.S. passport fell out of the world's Top 10 most powerful for the first time since the Henley Passport Index began 20 years ago, landing at 12th with visa-free access to 180 of 227 destinations.
• Hidden security Under ultraviolet light, hidden images, flags and landmark fragments glow across the pages of a U.S. passport, while microprinting so fine it reads as decorative lines is woven onto almost every page.
• Passport history Benjamin Franklin designed the first American passport during the Revolution, and until Congress halted the practice in 1856 individual states and even cities issued their own passports.
• Citizenship The 14th Amendment of 1868 made anyone born on U.S. soil a citizen regardless of ancestry, overturning the Dred Scott ruling and later cemented for immigrants' children by United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898.
• Currency origin The dollar takes its name from the 'thaler', a Bohemian silver coin, and was adopted in 1785 from the widely circulating Spanish silver dollar rather than any British coin.
• Worthless money The first national paper money, the Continental of 1775, collapsed so completely that the phrase 'not worth a Continental' became a common American insult for anything valueless.
• Motto on money 'In God We Trust' became the national motto only in 1956 and first appeared on paper currency on October 1, 1957, on the one-dollar silver certificate, replacing the older unofficial 'E pluribus unum'.
• Openness paradox Despite ranking among the world's strongest passports, the United States itself extends visa-free entry to just 46 nationalities, placing it 78th of 100 on Henley's openness index.
• Immigrant nation By January 2025 a record 53.3 million immigrants lived in the U.S., with people born in Mexico the largest group at roughly 10.9 million, about 22% of all immigrants.