
The Most Desirable Passports On Earth Don’t Include America’s - raphar
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/the-most-desirable-passports-on-earth-don-t-include-america
======
song
Their freedom score doesn't really make sense (in the pdf [https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Pas...](https://s3-eu-
west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Passport-Index-2017.pdf)).

For example, they give Malaysia 50, the highest score while giving 30 to
France. Don't get me wrong, I love that country but it has rigged elections,
no real freedom of press (Malaysia Kini an opposition website was censored
during some of the elections by blocking their DNS), politicians from the
opposition are imprisoned on spurious charges (Anwar for example) and
corruption is endemic.

Japan which also has 50 is not a shining example of Press freedom, it's a
country where innocent until proven guilty doesn't really hold (more than 99%
conviction rate) and where police can detain someone for 3 weeks without
charges being filled.

That said, I agree that France doesn't deserve the top score either due to new
surveillance laws following terrorist attacks and due to the state of their
prisons compared to the rest of EU but they shouldn't be ranked lower in
Freedom than Japan and Malaysia.

Here's the text of how they describe how they calculate the Freedom Index they
use for their ranking:

    
    
      The ability of citizens to live freely is responsible for 10% of each country’s total
      ranking. We believe that freedom of speech and of the press is a good thing, and
      imposing laws on non-resident citizens is generally a bad idea. This index relied on
      data regarding mandatory military service, government spying programs,
      incarceration rate, and laws targeting non-resident citizens (such as the United
      States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), as well as the World Press Freedom Index
      and Economic Freedom Index to determine how free citizens of each country are,
      particularly non-resident citizens. Each country was assigned a score from 10 to 50
      based on our proprietary blend of these factors, with 10 being the least free and 50
      being the most free.

~~~
alkonaut
I thought this particular freedom index only related to travel, e.g whether
coming and going is easy, whether you are taxed for income earned abroad and
so on?

~~~
song
From their PDF, [https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-
Pas...](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Passport-
Index-2017.pdf)

They have multiple factor in their ranking. One of them is the freedom index
which is described as:

    
    
      The ability of citizens to live freely is responsible for 10% of each country’s total
      ranking. We believe that freedom of speech and of the press is a good thing, and
      imposing laws on non-resident citizens is generally a bad idea. This index relied on
      data regarding mandatory military service, government spying programs,
      incarceration rate, and laws targeting non-resident citizens (such as the United
      States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), as well as the World Press Freedom Index
      and Economic Freedom Index to determine how free citizens of each country are,
      particularly non-resident citizens. Each country was assigned a score from 10 to 50
      based on our proprietary blend of these factors, with 10 being the least free and 50
      being the most free.

------
moonshinefe
"The U.S., by comparison, taxes citizens’ income no matter where it’s earned."

This is a common statement I see pretty often on the internet, often in the
context of bashing the US. However, there's a big asterisk there if you look
the rules up. If you're not making over 6 figures, you still have to file I
believe, but you don't pay taxes. So the vast majority of Americans abroad are
not paying taxes back to the US ($100800 / year is the cut off by the looks of
it)[1].

I'm not saying it isn't annoying still to file with the IRS or there aren't
people who are over the threshold getting burned, I just feel it's often a
glossed over detail that puts the US in an unnecessarily harsh light,
considering, again, most people won't be penalized financially here.

[1] [https://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-
myt...](https://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myths/)

~~~
thesimon
Foreign banks tend to not deal with customers with US tax residence though due
to FATCA requirements.

So it might be a burden even if you are under the threshold.

~~~
freddie_mercury
This hasn't been my experience at all in three countries (Singapore, Vietnam,
and Australia)

~~~
arcticbull
FATCA is relatively new, effective 2010, so if you opened your bank account
before then, you may well be grandfathered in.

------
paulddraper
Naturally European countries will be the most open; the point of the EU is to
provide a federalized government and reduce divisions.

It's not unlike the federalized state created by the American colonies in the
18th century: no taxes on inter-state trade, no inter-state immigration
restrictions, standard docs, etc.

------
andersonvom
The values in the original PDF don't really add up [1]. It doesn't really
change much, but it's still weird. If you apply the formula in the PDF to the
listed values, they're all 1-5 points off:

    
    
        Each country’s value in each category is given the indicated
        weighting to achieve a country’s total score using the formula
        ((Visa Free Travel x 0.5) +
         (Taxation x 0.3) + 
         (Perception x 0.1) + 
         (Dual Citizenship x 0.1) + 
         (Overall Freedom x 0.1)).
    

[1]: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vXSsukPDoqSwXPbR-
FKt...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vXSsukPDoqSwXPbR-
FKtmRkZoiwHKZ1i7D_QFKhWvAk/edit?usp=sharing)

------
Mikeb85
Canada #2 among countries not physically located in Europe, not bad. Guess I
don't have to trade in my passport anytime soon.

A US passport would likely be more valuable if the IRS didn't demand so much
of non-resident citizens.

------
coldtea
What's the "most desirable passport" depends on how many want to get
citizenship to the country issuing it (which for the US is quite a lot), not
on how other countries receive it's owners.

~~~
grecy
> _how many want to get citizenship to the country issuing it (which for the
> US is quite a lot)_

You're right that for the US it's a lot, though in my experience that's just
because Hollywood is the best marketing agency on the planet, not because
people make a well-reasoned decision on where to live.

I spent two years all over Latin America, and have now been in West Africa for
6 months. I meet people every single day that say they want to live in
America. When I ask why, they say "because life is perfect there. Everyone has
lots of money. Life is easy. There is no disease. There is no poverty.
Everyone has lots of food. Everyone has a huge house with a beach view." etc.

When I explain that there are homeless people, people that lose their jobs,
and people who struggle to make ends meet while working huge hours, people are
completely disbelieving. They think I'm lying, because the TV told them
otherwise, and of course people believe the TV more than some random guy.

When I suggest there are tons of other great countries (Australia, Canada,
Scandinavian countries, etc.) they could live, they just shrug and say "I want
America".

Hollywood has done a very good job of marketing America, but like all
marketing, a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.

~~~
senorjazz
I remember when the now wife (from a South American country) came to visit the
UK when I was living in a city in the north. She was shocked "wow, you have
poor areas and poor people too".

She literally had the idea, the UK was all quaint little villages with roads
made of gold populated by Hugh Grant types.

~~~
grecy
I just had this discussion with a local.

I was saying there are homeless people in London, and he refused to believe
me. After a lot of talking around, he said.. "oh, yeah, but they're black,
aren't they".

He refused to believe there are white homeless people in London.

------
vacri
Traveling in Vietnam, I met a woman with three passports. She sounded English,
considered herself Dutch, but traveled on her US passport. Why? Because when
you get into trouble in a foreign country, the US consulates like to flex
their muscle, whereas most others, UK included, tend to just say "well, that
was stupid of you".

They don't seem to have taken that kind of thing into account in their
rankings.

~~~
owenversteeg
I travel a lot and 'only' have two passports (Dutch/American.) I usually
travel on my Dutch one because of visa restrictions, and I doubt using my
Dutch one would at all prevent the US consulates from helping me.

That said, I get your point - it can be nice to know "if I get into serious
trouble, the US will probably work hard to get me home safe". That's not to
say the Netherlands won't, and I admire the foreign policy positions of the
Netherlands, but ultimately "annoy the US" is a lot scarier than "annoy the
Netherlands", and it's something valuable to keep in mind.

------
corford
Interestingly, Portugal (13 on the list) would jump to number 1 (with a score
of 115) if they factored in the NHR scheme which gives new residents a 10 year
tax break on foreign source income (though admittedly there are some strings
attached to this - more info here:
[http://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/NR/rdonlyres/D0C80C76-3...](http://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/NR/rdonlyres/D0C80C76-3DA8-4B90-A1E4-FF53BD34EF95/0/IRS_RNH_EN.pdf)).

------
visarga
It should weigh each visa by the number of people who want to travel to that
destination - it's not the same to get a visa to US and Ukraine.

------
eigenvector
They don't seem to have taken into account the propensity of certain
governments (mostly the US and UK) to undertake extreme measures to get their
citizens out of trouble in foreign countries, up to and including mass
evacuations and clandestine military operations. That's a feature Luxembourg
doesn't offer.

~~~
coldtea
> _the propensity of certain governments (mostly the US and UK) to undertake
> extreme measures to get their citizens out of trouble in foreign countries_

In Hollywood movies. In real life, from a lot of accounts I've read over the
years, the local embassies/consulate/etc are not much help and not very eager
to help either...

~~~
vacri
Military actions are the extreme end of it. Consulates can help in all sorts
of ways, and the US is well-financed.

~~~
_of
And you don't think that other countries have consulates and embassies that
are willing to help their citizens?

~~~
vacri
Consular effort is not binary, but a continuum.

------
posterboy
To the title: not so, and not because I disagree with the sentiment, but
because desirable has neither a comparative nor a superlative. So I parse it
as not desirable at all, which the article sure won't claim. (but I aint gonna
read it; too busy arguing semantics)

------
nomercy400
Only 10 points for dual citizenship for the Netherlands? Okay, it is not
allowed by law, with exceptions, but when about 10% of your population holds
dual passports, you could say it isn't enforced.

~~~
owenversteeg
Ten percent of the Netherlands holds dual passports? That sounded high to me
(dual Dutch-American citizen) so I looked it up, figured I'd post the stats I
found:

The Dutch population is 17.1MM, there are 1.3MM people with dual Dutch
nationality [0]. The majority are Moroccan (321k) and Turkish (312k) people
who acquired both Dutch and Turkish/Moroccan citizenship upon birth. Another
270k or so are EU citizens, plus a handful of Asians. Depending on the
country, between 30-70% of people will have a passport, so my estimate is that
60% of dual citizens in this case will have two passports (may be lower as
Turkish citizens can enter Turkey on another passport.)

If 80% of dual citizens have both passports, then 6% of Dutch citizens own two
passports; if 60% of dual citizens have both passports then 4% of Dutch
citizens own two passports.

Also worth noting there can be some very strange situations here - for example
I (a Dutch/US citizen) moved from the US and lived in the Netherlands for
almost a year before acquiring a Dutch passport.

[0]
[http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...](http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=70798NED&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0-6,21,30,51,116,187&D4=a&HD=150728-1318&HDR=T,G1,G3&STB=G2)

------
rwmj
I wonder how far down the table Brexit will take us.

~~~
joshvm
The main downside of Brexit, practically speaking, is that you can no longer
randomly move to an EU country and get a job (I'm very much pro-remain). The
ranking seems to only weight visa-free _travel_ , which will almost certainly
remain after we leave the EU. We would probably lose out in the perception
score, but I suspect that's more "Are lots of terrorists from your country?"
than "Boo, you left the EU".

Currently we can access 175 countries visa-free, that's unlikely to change
much.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_citizens)

The exceptions that people are most likely to encounter are Russia and China.
The remaining countries are largely in unstable parts of Africa and the Middle
East. The differences between the top countries is mostly statistical noise.
Oddly enough you can travel to Mongolia without a visa if you're a German
citizen, but not if you're British. Germany also gets visa-free access to
Iran, which the UK doesn't.

------
robteix
The title is wrong as it includes a piece of the abstract. The original title
is "The Most Desirable Passports On Earth Don’t Include America’s."

Please someone remove the "visa" at the end as it makes no sense

~~~
sctb
Thanks! A moderator updated the title.

------
reddytowns
The title should be "The Most Desirable Passports on Earth Don’t Include
America’s", or if you must "The Most Desirable Passports on Earth Don’t
Include America’s _Passport_ ". Visa doesn't make sense here.

~~~
CalRobert
Agreed; I thought this article would be about countries who treat you
unfavourably if you've gotten a visa to visit the US.

------
shawnps
I know many people in tech from non-US countries who went through a lot of
trouble to get hired on H1B visas. The power of the US passport (for
engineers) is the ability to work legally in the US.

~~~
_of
Mostly India and China?

