Traveling from country to country has become more of a challenge in the past two years. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused some nations to shut their borders, at least to some travelers. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of nearly 100 countries it recommends people avoid because of the virus. This list includes some of the largest countries in Europe. International air travel has been undermined by concerns about safety on planes and in airports.
The Omicron variant has triggered a new decline in international travel and new rules about who can go in and out of some countries.
One factor in travel is not related to the virus. Some passports allow people to travel more easily than others. Factors that can affect one’s ability to globetrot freely include international perceptions of the traveler’s nationality, restrictions on obtaining dual citizenship and the number of countries the traveler can enter without a visa.
Using an index of these and other measures compiled by Nomad Capitalist, a tax and immigration consultancy company, 24/7 Wall St. has identified the most valuable passport in the world.
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The places one can visit, without a pre-issued visa, are determined largely by diplomatic ties between the country that issued the passport and the rest of the world. A passport issued by the United States, for example, grants its holder visa-free access to 187 countries, the seventh-most of any country.
The countries with the most valuable passports tend to be relatively wealthy places. In all but two nations on this list, annual GDP per capita is more than double the global average of $11,433, according to the most recent data available from the World Bank.
The country with the most valuable passport is Luxembourg. Here are the details:
- Visa-free travel is permitted to 190 countries.
- Dual citizenship is freely allowed.
- Annual international departures total 2.5 million (4.1 per person).
- GDP per capita is $114,705.
- Population is 619,896.
Luxembourg is a small landlocked country in western Europe. Those with a Luxembourger passport can travel without a visa to 190 other countries, the second most among European countries, trailing only Germany. International travel is common for citizens of Luxembourg. Residents leave their home country for destinations abroad a total of 2.5 million times per year, or more than four times per resident.
The index calculated by Nomad Capitalist ranks the power of passports based on five measures: the number of countries accessible without a visa (50%), whether a county can tax foreign nationals (20%), ease with which passport holders can obtain dual citizenship (10%), perception of the issuing country by people of other nationalities (10%) and freedom within the issuing country (10%), as measured by mandatory military service, press freedom and government surveillance. A full methodological explanation is available from Nomad Capitalist’s Nomad Passport Index 2021.
The number of countries that passport holders from the nations on this list can visit without a visa came from Henley & Partners, a citizenship planning firm.
We also considered gross domestic product per capita in current U.S. dollars, annual international departures and population for the most recent available year from the World Bank.
Click here to see all the countries with the most valuable passports.
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