TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Only around one in six Japanese citizens hold valid passports, fresh data has shown, with the number of residents traveling abroad slowly recovering but still below pre-pandemic levels.

The latest rate is far below the half of Americans with passports, a level that has soared from around five percent in 1990.

As of December 2024, there were 21.6 million valid Japanese passports in circulation, representing around 17.5 percent of the overall population, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, about a quarter of Japanese people owned valid passports.

The country’s travel document is tied with neighbor South Korea’s passport as the world’s second strongest after Singapore, allowing visa-free entry to 190 destinations, according to this year’s Henley Passport Index.

Outbound travel from Japan has gradually resumed after the quarantine measures and border closures of the pandemic era, according to the ministry.

But the weakness of the yen — which has shed a third of its value in the past five years — is one factor deterring Japanese travelers along with inflation and a renewed interest in domestic travel, analysts say.

International travel by Japanese nationals began to increase sharply in the boom years of the late 1980s.

In 1990, more than 10 million people from Japan traveled abroad, a figure that rose to 20 million before the pandemic.

This year around 14.1 million Japanese are expected to travel abroad, according to top Japanese travel agency JTB.

“In recent years, the rapid depreciation of the yen has caused some to refrain from overseas travel, but once the currency market calms, overseas travel is expected to pick up steam,” said its study, issued in January.