World's most powerful passport revealed as UK and US drop to record lows

The updated rankings that indicate the world's most powerful passports have been released, and it's bad news for the UK and US.

How powerful your passport is depends on how many countries you can get into with it while avoiding major hassle, and there's one passport that has absolutely dominated this list for the past few years.

It turns out that the big cheese of international passports continues to be Singapore, which has held the top spot in five of the last seven years.

The Henley Passport Index ranks countries on the number of 'visa free destinations' their passport will get you into, and Singapore's 193 countries means it stands head and shoulders above the rest.

It's three points above second placed South Korea, while Japan takes third with 189 points, though it's been a less impressive showing for the British passport.

Behold! The mightiest passport in the world (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Just 10 years ago, the UK was sitting on the top spot of the Henley Passport Index, and had occupied the first place for three years.

However, in the past decade the power of the British passport has steadily tumbled down the league table before recovering to fourth place last year, but now we've dropped to the lowest point since the rankings started in 2006.

We're now joint eighth on 184 points alongside Croatia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Arab Emirates, but there are others who have fallen further, so at least we can look down on another passport.

That one would be the US, which started the whole shebang as top of the league in 2006, but wouldn't occupy that spot again until 2014, when they held the top spot jointly with the UK.

Like the UK, they've seen a fairly consistent decline in the past decade, as last year they were languishing in seventh place in the table.

If you were wondering if it could get worse, in the prophetic words of Mick McCarthy: "It can."

The British passport is comparatively less powerful than it used to be (JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

They've tumbled five further places from last year and now they jointly occupy spot number 12 alongside Malaysia on 180 points.

It's still one of the most powerful passports in the world, but when the rankings started 19 years ago they had the top spot, and now there's 37 countries with passports of equal or greater strength to theirs.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the table is Afghanistan in the bottom spot as it scored just 24 points, while Syria languishes in the spot just above them on 26, and Iraq's 29 points puts them third from bottom.