
Passport Index 2016 - dominotw
https://www.passportindex.org/byRegion.php
======
hal9000xp
I had citizenship of one most repressive and poor countries in the world -
Uzbekistan. Later I obtained Russian citizenship. Now, I'm living in the
Netherlands and plan to obtain citizenship of some first world country (NL, SG
etc).

So I have first hand experience to live with Uzbek passport and being
practically completely isolated from the first world (nobody give you EU
tourist visa if you have Uzbek passport and you are not "special" person).

Now, I have Russian passport, it's a bit easier but I'm still struggling to
get even tourist US visa (I was refused twice).

Changing passport is very long and painful process. It can significantly
change your course of life (like in my case).

~~~
tuna-piano
I've often thought of the dollar value of my US passport (/citizenship). It
would definitely be my most valuable asset (then again, taxes are by far my
biggest expense). Besides almost unrestricted travel - my income is far higher
in the US than it would be in any other country I've looked at.

It's easy to forget how lucky those of us in the developed world are and how
so many try so hard to gain status here.

Good luck on your journey, and I hope someday you're able to get the US
tourist visa to experience the joys of the US: Yosemite, NYC, Disney World and
Taco Bell.

~~~
rwmj
This is why I think the European Union should be more like an actual union.
You should be able to subscribe to it, and your membership would grant you a
passport, rights and duties. It would solve the whole Brexit issue, because
everyone who wanted to remain a member could do so. It wouldn't even be that
expensive - we pay about £185/year each at the moment to be in the EU
(£13bn/70m people).

Edit: Obviously this is not a fully worked out idea. What I find disappointing
is that no one in the news ever even talks about alternatives, even narrow
alternatives.

~~~
cel1ne
It's not just work and travel, what about all the taxes, consumer protection
laws etc.

How would selling goods be like? An "EU-supermarket" next to the regular one
where you have to show your membership to be able to buy?

~~~
jjawssd
Very interesting idea... Maybe some set of alternative services for EU
subscribers.

------
sevenless
Is there a guide to multiple citizenship power leveling anywhere?

Edit: A bit of munging from the web page later...

For Americans and British/Western Europe, the passports you want are Burkina
Faso, Benin and Senegal. They will bring your passport power level up by 13
points to 168 (American) and 170 (UK) and give you visa free access to Cote
Divoire (Ivory Coast), Mali, Iran, Congo, Niger, Benin, Nigeria, Liberia,
Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Chad, Ghana. In reality these
countries may not allow dual citizenship! Benin and Burkina Faso however do
recognize dual citizenship while Senegal does not.
([http://www.multiplecitizenship.com/worldsummary.html](http://www.multiplecitizenship.com/worldsummary.html))

The highest power level you can have as a dual citizen is 170. Any combination
of these three African countries and Western European nations will achieve
this. So the most powerful dual citizens are mostly West African migrants.

Now for _triple_ citizens, the highest possible power is a whopping 178. There
are a few combinations that do this, involving those 3 African countries, plus
Russian Federation, Singapore, Japan and Turkey. For example,
Turkey/Japan/Senegal, Burkina Faso/Russia/Singapore, Japan/Benin/Turkey. So it
looks like the path to ultimate power is sadly blocked for those of us in the
USA and Europe, and in fact, the most powerful dual citizens cannot become the
most powerful triple citizens. On the other hand, Senegal/United States of
America/Malaysia will get you 177, nearly as good.

~~~
cloudjacker
yeah, they are called 'second passport' guides.

assuming marriage is unfavorable and you don't want to pretend to be jewish,
there are a couple of treaties you can take advantage of, typically old
imperialist countries have guilt trips with their former south american or
african colonies and have an easy citizenship path for citizens in those
former colonies. But then those former colonies have really malleable
government officials so you can get one passport and upgrade to EU, in theory.

then next way that is less theoretical requires money, liquid, cash.

Malta is in the EU and lets you buy an EU citizenship and passport. Takes one
year, it isn't that expensive though. ~500,000 euros. Any homeowner in the bay
area could do it. The majority of the cost is a real estate or bond
investment, so you actually still have your principle.

Many first world countries like the US have pay for citizenship programs if
you are wealthy and have liquid assets. Malta's is most analogous to the US'
EB-5 citizenship investment program, except you get free trade and travel with
a bunch of other countries (like if you really wanted to take advantage of
Germany's laws or the UK's laws for your next domicile or company)

St. Kitts and Nevis is a federation in the Caribbean, they offer the same
thing for like $250,000. The US State Department cautions investment with that
country because of some favorable expropriation laws that government granted
itself, but it is no different than civil asset forfeiture in almost any US
state. The key point in St. Kitts and Nevis being a federation, like the
United States, is that Nevis itself is a semi-autonomous state, like North
Carolina would be. And has duplicate laws and officials that fly far under the
radar for most international purposes. So, just keep that in mind if you ever
need to get crafty.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
> it isn't that expensive though. ~500,000 euros. Any homeowner in the bay
> area could do it.

I'm not sure whether to roll my eyes at over half a million dollars being "not
that expensive" or the assertion that _any_ Bay Area homeowner has that much
liquidity to just toss at a Maltese passport. Unless you're suggesting selling
the house to do it.

~~~
cloudjacker
home equity line of credit

the primary distinction I was hoping to make was that you didn't need to be an
international spy or an oil baron to achieve the levels of wealth necessary to
get these things.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
Er, you should revisit what having that much spending power, even via a HELOC,
would place one in terms of percentile. Your oil baron suddenly isn't far off
since that graph is somewhat exponential.

Most area homeowners I know are driving Civics or Jettas and worrying about
property tax assessments, so. The comment was just silly in terms of
perspective and was silly to come across in a thread that already discussed
privilege (for lack of a better word, I know it's loaded).

A HELOC is a monumentally terrible idea for the situation, by the way.

~~~
cloudjacker
Ok. The bay area comment wasn't the only inflammatory hyberbole I wrote so I
will gladly concede that I wrote something incongruent with all perspectives.

Alright?

------
honkhonkpants
Let's comment on the visual design of passports. These are all basically the
same, except two that stand out: Switzerland, and The Vatican. The latter is
very typically Swiss, with an attractive, simple, and modern design. The
former is sinister and mysterious, but also quite distinctive.

Honorable mention to Brazil and Bosnia for having passports without a coat of
arms type of thing on the front.

~~~
noobermin
The Swiss benefit from having a flag with a moniker that is simple and
instantly recognizable and fits very well in something similar to today's
minimalist designs. The others who use coat-of-arms-like designs can't.

To be fair, I had to search for the Vatican and Switzerland, so they didn't
stand out to me. The most noticeable was Brazil's with a "design" (at least a
line) that fills the whole cover. It might have hurt though that the Vatican's
and Switzerland's passports were on the far left side on my monitor size while
Brazil's was near the center.

~~~
uola
As far as I know the cross is technically the coat of arms, which probably has
to do with the whole confederation thing. Passports do usually have quite
different backgrounds inside, but generally you of course want them to be as
recognizable as possible.

------
danra
Anyone else reminded of Passport Please? Imagine having to recognize a fake
passport by a slight difference in symbol/text format :)

~~~
arcticbull
Papers Please ^_^ and I loved that game, though this is massively hard mode.

------
hypertexthero
Reminds me of [Quest][1] by sailor-philosopher and self-declared citizen of
the world [George Dibbern][2], who renounced his German passport in 1940 and
created his own with the following declaration:

> I, George Dibbern, through long years in different countries and sincere
> friendship with many people in many lands feel my place to be outside of
> nationality, a citizen of the world and a friend of all peoples.

> I recognize the divine origin of all nations and therefore their value in
> being as they are, respect their laws, and feel my existence solely as a
> bridge of good fellowship between them.

[1]:
[http://www.georgedibbern.com/aboutdibbern.html](http://www.georgedibbern.com/aboutdibbern.html)
[2]: [http://www.georgedibbern.com/quest-
dibbern.html](http://www.georgedibbern.com/quest-dibbern.html)

------
Freak_NL
Looking at the passports that provide visa-free access to 158, 157, and 156
countries, I wonder why Viet Nam and Rwanda grant visas on arrival to
specifically some European countries, but not others.

So for Viet Nam; Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Spain are okay, but not Austria,
Belgium and The Netherlands.

Interesting visualisation; the map is missing South Sudan though.

~~~
invaliduser
It's just a matter of reciprocity. Look for instance at Gambia: it's visa-free
to go there for citizens of countries where Gambian citizen can go visa-free
too.

this is just how countries managed/refused treaties with each others, based on
mutual interests, history, etc

~~~
Frondo
This is pedantic, I know, but also interesting (to me, at least): the country
is actually The Gambia, not Gambia. They want the article! And yes, I cringe
when I hear news announcers say "The Ukraine" too. :)

(They also have an unusually tasteful flag, that manages to represent the
geography of the country without looking like a map.)

~~~
invaliduser
Ho wow, you are totally correct, and I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing
that out!

------
valine
The consistency of the design between passports is remarkable. They all follow
a basic pattern: Country name at the top, centered logo, then the word
'passport' at the bottom. There are only a handful of countries that deviate
from the pattern. It's almost like there is a universal passport design
language. Does anyone know if there is a official specification counties
follow?

Edit: The international Civil Aviation Organization issues the specification.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Civil_Aviation...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Civil_Aviation_Organization)

------
tuna-piano
In case anyone else was curious as to the difference between "Visa on Arrival"
and "Visa Free", check out this Quora thread: [https://www.quora.com/What-is-
the-difference-between-visa-on...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-
difference-between-visa-on-arrival-and-visa-free-entry-for-travel-to-a-
foreign-country)

It seems the practical difference is mainly in name only, although it's
possible that immigration officers are given more leeway to restrict entry for
the "visa on arrival" countries.

~~~
thesimon
Most of the time "Visa on Arrival" costs money as well whereas "Visa Free" is
free.

~~~
tuna-piano
I'm not sure if that's right. Countries all the time have mandatory fees
included in Airline tickets. Sometimes those fees are paid at the airport on
arrival instead. Many other other Visa Free countries have a mandatory
departure tax.

A lot of the "Visa Free" countries have fees (whether they call them visa
fees, tourism fee, etc). I'm not sure that any correlation can be drawn
between "Visa Free" and "$0".

~~~
thesimon
>Countries all the time have mandatory fees included in Airline tickets.

>Sometimes those fees are paid at the airport on arrival instead.

In most cases they apply to everyone though, even people with no visa
requirement.

>I'm not sure that any correlation can be drawn between "Visa Free" and "$0".

Not in general, but when looking at the visa costs.

------
dorfsmay
The passports with a symbol of a circle inside a rectangle at the bottom
include biometric information:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport)

~~~
zumu
Thank you. I have been wondering this for quite some time.

------
the_mitsuhiko
Last time I was checking this index is pretty crappy (as in inaccurate and
spotty; for instance it claims that swiss citizens can access North Korea visa
free). Henley & Partners have one that is more reliable. I spot checked last
year's version of H&P and that website against timatic which is the source for
both and H&P was at least mostly correct.

Unfortunately there is no good way to get access to this information in
machine readable format. It's all free form text and full of special rules.

------
Animats
There's are some multinational passports. There's the European Union laissez-
passer.[1] This is issued to European Union officials who travel on EU
business, and is accepted as a passport within the EU and by about 100 non-EU
countries. There's also a United Nations laissez-passer, for UN officials.[2]
That's not as widely accepted as the EU one.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_laissez-
passer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_laissez-passer) [2]
United Nations laissez-passer

------
guelo
If I imagine a completely open world with no visas I think the "first world"
would stop being desirable. USA and Europe would be flooded with hundreds of
millions of people and would develop giant slums. It would be bad not only for
the current people that live there but also for the people that currently want
to move to a better place since there wouldn't be a better place to move to.

------
morgante
It would be nice for this ranking to be expanded to include employment/work
access beyond tourist visits.

I'm working on acquiring an Italian passport not because it will allow me to
enter more countries without a visa (an American passport is fine for that)
but because it allows long-term working/residence in EU countries.
Unfortunately, this ranking doesn't capture that dynamic.

~~~
kalleboo
It would be interesting to see what other countries have similar free working
visa agreements. It may be hard to capture in a number - there's cases like
Canadians getting a TN visa at the border to the US.

------
tegeek
Incidentally the Germanic nations (German, Sweden, Finland, Denmark,
Switzerland etc) always ranks in top 5 in almost every ranking of this kind.

~~~
jmtulloss
OT: Is Finland a Germanic nation? Their language isn't afaik.

~~~
asamy45
No. Finland speaks Finnish and Swedish, and they lie within the Nordic region.

~~~
jmtulloss
Well that doesn't really exclude them since Swedes and Norwegians are
Germanic. After more research it seems that Finns are a distinct ethnic group
though their origins are somewhat uncertain
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn)

In any case, it's all pretty irrelevant to the site.

~~~
inflagranti
Definitely Finish as a language is completely unrelated to any Germanic
language.

~~~
Kliment
Grammatically you're right but due to the Baltic trade, the Swedish occupation
and various other historical reasons there is a lot of Germanic vocabulary in
Finnish etymology, though many words of Germanic origin are no longer
recognizable. Estonian, a very closely related language, has kept some of
those in an earlier form where they are more recognizably Germanic.

------
frobozz
Mildly disappointed that this appears to only be a list of national passports.

It would be nice to see the World[1] and Sovereign Military Order of Malta[2]
passports on here, as well as any others that I don't know about

That said, neither of them align well with the purposes of the company running
the site - securing multiple citizenships for rich people.

The latter requires rather a lot of effort to get, as you need to work up to
become one of the three senior officials of the order (which, I think,
requires a vow of poverty).

The former costs as little as $55 for three years, and doesn't have any visa-
free arrangements.

[1]
[http://www.worldservice.org/visas.html](http://www.worldservice.org/visas.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta_passport)

------
clarkmoody

      National borders are imaginary lines on a map that people are
      willing to kill people for; just for the privilege to keep imagining 
      the lines [1]
    

[1]
[http://www.kentforliberty.com/borders.html](http://www.kentforliberty.com/borders.html)

------
mthoms
No mention yet of the very best passport to have -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-
passer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-passer)

(It's baby blue of course) It's kind of neat to see them in the wild.

~~~
DanBC
> It remains unclear what the remaining added value of an UNLP is, in view of
> the restrictions imposed by different countries.

What is the value?

~~~
Symbiote
I'd guess it helps for people with "unwelcome" citizenship travelling for the
UN.

For example, someone from Afghanistan working for the UN Refugee Agency
travelling to a conference in the USA might receive less suspicion at the
border.

------
tenpies
What is it with South American countries not being able to lay out things
properly? Peru looks like someone forgot centre everything and by the time
they noticed they had already printed hundreds of thousands of passport covers
so they just went with it.

~~~
abrowne
Whereas Peru's is one my favorites largely because it's one of the relative
few that's not all centered. (I also noticed Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Brazil, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Iran and
Maldives are centered, but off-center.)

------
jonathankoren
Honduras and Guatemala have the worst passport covers in the world. They're
both the same political map of central america with with their respective
countries shaded in. It looks like they they both farmed this out to some 10
year old that had never seen a passport before. Both countries have perfectly
good coat of arms. Why not use that? Instead it's like a geography lesson.
("I've been working in passport control for years, and I don't know where your
country is." "Well, sir, it's this one right here." "Oh nice. Thanks. Learn
something everyday!")

------
xxxxxxxx
Australia is such an unwelcoming country it's embarrassing. I suspect it's
island mentality. At the airport we treat all arriving passengers as criminals
- guilty of some terrible crime until cleared with a fully cavity search. To
all our visitors - past, present and future - I apologise for our stupid
bureaucracy and politicians. Once you get out of the airport things do get a
little better.

~~~
sanswork
Honestly most countries are like this if you have to speak with customs. The
US has been my worst experience and I use to cross into it frequently. At
least with epassports these days I generally don't even have to talk to anyone
when I arrive in Sydney except the guy that checks if you need to have the
dogs sniff your bags.

~~~
pandler
> I generally don't even have to talk to anyone when I arrive in Sydney

I _always_ have to speak to a customs agent when traveling to Australia. My
passport and all alternate photo ids are pre-big-bushy-beard, which throws the
facial recognition kiosks for a loop. I made the mistake of trying to joke
about it to the customs agent one time, and I remember her raising her
eyebrows at me and calling over a supervisor.

The grandparent's comment is pretty descriptive of my experience at the
Australian border.

> At the airport we treat all arriving passengers as criminals

~~~
sanswork
How many borders is that not descriptive of though? The US border even
fingerprints people now.

The closest I've come to not being treated like a criminal are borders in SEA
where the agents only spoke a few words of English so they may have looked at
me like I was a criminal but couldn't really say it in a way I would
understand.

------
laut
On the map
([https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php](https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php))
Greenland should probably have a "more powerful" colour since they get a
Danish passport.

------
tuna-piano
In relation to passport power - I find Trump's proposed ban on Muslims pretty
interesting to think about. Although widely criticized, it seems to me more
ethically wrong to base entry decisions on country of origin (not a choice)
than of religion (a choice).

Obviously there are many issues with the practicality, unintended
consequences, and the blanket nature of a ban on muslims. That said, I'm not
sure I see an ethical issue compared to restricting based on country of origin
(what this site shows).

~~~
charlesism
Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based
on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by
blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa,
or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless
lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different
citizenships... but when you look into this stuff, there's nothing very
logical about it, and it's somewhat depressing that the planet is still this
bizarre.

~~~
Negitivefrags
There is nothing illogical about it.

If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average.
Workers in poor countries would move to rich countries (because they have
higher wages) until those countries wages had gone down, and the countries
they left would have their wages go up due to the supply decrease in workers.

It's complete logical self interest for country richer than the average to not
want to allow this to happen.

~~~
superuser2
Economies are not zero-sum.

The flow of capital and education to poor countries would increase their
productivity (and thus wages and standard of living) while the increased
supply of labor decreases prices in rich countries, and the new equilibrium
would be strictly better for both sides.

Find a good economics textbook. (This is an issue where economists are in
almost universal agreement, and almost universally opposed by politicians and
the general public).

~~~
67726e
I'm sorry but that's transparently bullshit, an example of good on paper but
bad I reality. It does very little but line the pockets of a select few in the
rich nations. There is no reason for me to give a shit about someone in Africa
if it means my own family, my own people struggle.

~~~
aravindet
"My own people".

Clearly you use that phrase to mean people who share a nationality with you.
Historically, this phrase has been used more often to refer to people with the
same skin color, or religion, as you.

You could use the exact words you used to justify systematic exclusion of
people of another race or religion from jobs and markets controlled by "your
people". I like to think that we’d all consider that appalling.

Like race or religion, nationality is largely determined by an accident of
birth. It is inconsistent to hold that racial or religious discrimination is
unethical, but discriminating on the basis of nationality is somehow okay.

~~~
visarga
We are all human, we deserve the same opportunities. But when mass migrations
happen, they threaten the host country and also don't solve the problem back
in the source country. The solution would be to make it better to live
everywhere, so that people would not be so tempted to migrate. It will
probably happen for Africa and Middle East in this century, as technology
advances quickly.

~~~
aravindet
And I assume a very similar argument was made in apartheid South Africa, or
Jim Crow US.

“We are all human, we deserve the same opportunities. But when [black people
move into white neighborhoods], they threaten [white neighborhoods] and also
don't solve the problem back in [black neighborhoods]. The solution would be
to make it better to live everywhere, so that people would not be so tempted
to migrate. It will probably happen for [Cape Town and Johannesburg?] in this
century, as technology advances quickly.”

Or, in other words, you propose the “separate but equal” solution.

------
akita-ken
I wonder how countries choose which colour to use for their passports. Black
and purple seem to be the rarest colours, with generally no light colour
(other than bright red) being used.

~~~
eulo__
The general trend that is visible is that Islamic states tend to prefer green,
Communist or former Communist countries prefer red, European nations prefer
burgundy and the rest have mostly gone with shades of blue.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport)

~~~
techsupporter
> European nations prefer burgundy

Minor bit of trivia: European Union countries[0], with a few exceptions, all
use a standardized passport format[1]. The burgundy red color is specified.
(This was one of the reasons given by the "Leave" campaign in the run up to
the Brexit vote, that the United Kingdom would be able to return to a blue
cover color.)

0 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passports_of_the_European_Unio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passports_of_the_European_Union)

1 - [http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:41981X0919:EN:HTML)

------
wineisfine
Did you know Cuba has agreements with individual countries; like for example,
for Serbs it's one of the few hassle free countries to travel to.

------
galori
Just opening this page makes me feel like I'm Jason Bourne and a swat team is
about to crash through my window. I closed the tab.

------
raz32dust
Chinese passport holders require visa for Hong Kong even though they are visa-
free 145 countries!

And visiting Iran is visa-free for 186 countries!

------
tragomaskhalos
This is fascinating but I found myself frustrated by the lack of an obvious
key to the acronyms used in the rankings

------
nerdponx
It would be nice if they explained what these scores mean. Or am I missing
something?

------
YeGoblynQueenne
The pope has a cool passport.

------
aearm
The ranking isnt true the strian passport hasnt 32 visa free country

------
exit
nationality is segregation

------
nononosisisi
You forgot pizza

~~~
Swizec
As someone who grew up 100km from Italy.

US pizza sucks. Easily one of the things I miss most about home.

Also good sausages.

~~~
honkhonkpants
America is a huge place. There's a pizzeria in San Francisco, California, run
by a man who has won the Naples pizza contest 12 times.

~~~
josephg
I second this. I moved temporarily to the Bay Area from Australia. The USA has
a reputation for awful food internationally but ... well, the truth is more
complicated. It has terrible food and amazing food depending on where you go.
As my old supervisor would say, the US has a higher standard deviation in food
quality than most countries do.

I've lost 8kg (15 pounds) since returning to Australia, but just thinking
about deep dish pizza makes my mouth water. Its really something special. I
try to go to Homeroom, Zacharies and Fentons every time I visit.

~~~
honkhonkpants
I think it's just the scale of the place. California is larger than Italy, in
terms of area, although less populous. If you were going to say that the US
has awful food, you can't cherry-pick Italy as your standard. It would only be
fair if you lumped Italy together with Estonia and Ireland and took the
average.

I've travelled a lot and I've never been to any place where there wasn't good
food. The desire to cook and eat delicious food is universal, and the practice
exists wherever there is enough wealth to support it.

------
stonogo
I find it interesting they rate a passport's "power" by where you can go away
to, instead of by where you go home to.

~~~
underyx
People get passports to go away, not the opposite.

~~~
nikitoz
In post-Soviet countries we have 2 types of passports: one internal which is
used as id card and second is for traveling. So for most people there,
passport is like a synonym for citizenship.

~~~
underyx
Interesting, I'm from Hungary (pretty sure that counts as post-Soviet), and
I've never heard of such a thing.

I'm also pretty sure that the internal passports are 100% irrelevant to this
site and one would get confused by this only if they really, really wanted to.

