US Passport Rank Drops to 5th Most Powerful in the World

On Apr 21, 2015

The US passport has long been considered the most powerful passport in the world – until now.

GoEuro (www.goeuro.com) has analyzed passports from 50 countries to discover which nationality’s passport is the most useful when travelling the globe with the results ranking the US passport at number five.

Taking the top spot in GoEuro’s poll is the Swedish passport which allows its holders access to 174 countries and costs $43 to renew, only one hour’s work on minimum wage. The US passport in comparison costs $135 to renew, a total of 19 hours of work at minimum wage.

Passports in Numbers

It costs how much? While the US does have one of the most expensive passports globally, it is peanuts compared to Turkey’s passport that costs $251 to renew. At the other end of the scale, UAE’s passport is the cheapest at just $14.

How many hours? While working for 19 hours to save for a passport does seem a bit extreme, spare a thought for citizens of Liberia who have to work a whopping 278 hours at minimum wage to save the $50 needed to renew their passport.

Where can you go? Holders of Sweden, Finland, Germany, USA and United Kingdom passports have the greatest freedom of movement with visa free access to 174 countries. However at the bottom of the list is the Afghanistan passport which only allows access to just 28 countries.

To determine which factors would be use in ranking these passports GoEuro commissioned a poll to find out what contributes to a passport’s power. The company ranked the passports based on visa free access as well as cost of renewing the passport, length of validity and the amount of hours a one must work to obtain their passport. All factors were weighted and scored to produce the ultimate passport ranking.

You can find the full graphic here: www.goeuro.com/ultimate-passport-ranking