US Passport Power Falls to Historic Low
henleyglobal.com
henleyglobal.com
Maybe they count destinations differently?
with apologies to Goodhart.
The UK's ranking fell for similar reasons as well.
If not having visa-free access to PNG or Venezuela is a metric, it's not a fairly relevant metric, or at least a very lossy metric.
Out of curiosity, why don't we see the same degree of Brazilian immigration to the EU then versus the US?
Is it solely economic (ie. a Brazilian accountant is more likely to demand a salary significantly higher that that back in Brazil by moving to the US versus an EU state)?
There's actually an estimated ~2 million Brazilians in the EU and also in the US (out of 220 millions)
There are a lot of Brazilians in the EU, most have legal residency through heritage (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian are quite common 2nd passports) or through work visas.
You can't discount the huge influence the USA has over Latin America, and specially over Brazil, people look up to the USA as a benchmark/role model, many Brazilians dream of "making it" by moving to the USA; Brazilians also suffer a huge influence from the consumerist aspect of the USA, they want to have nice cars (which are cheaper relative to salaries than in Brazil), they want to buy electronics that are expensive in Brazil: consoles, computers, phones, they want to buy clothing that is considered expensive in Brazil, there's a quite markedly status-chasing aspect of Brazilian society that mimics the American one. Brazil was somewhat molded according to the USA: car-dependent, consumerist, etc. so a lot of Brazilians believe that the USA is what Brazil "could be" if it was richer.
There are many support groups from past immigrants to help out settling in the USA, it's also much easier to live in the USA undocumented than in most of the EU: in the USA there's no centralised identification at the federal level, in the EU most countries require you to have a tax ID to do most of the basic bureaucracies you need to settle.
It's a confluence of factors that make Brazilian immigration into the USA very different than into the EU. From my experience most Brazilians in the EU are high-skilled immigrants or have a second citizenship or are spouses of natives/citizens.
The answer could change depending on how you select the million people you are asking this question to.
https://chatgpt.com/share/68f00ad0-a9fc-800e-abac-584703b92a...
And the results:
Tier 1 — Global Leaders (Scores 98–100)
Singapore — 100
Germany — 99
France — 99
Italy — 99
Spain — 99
Japan — 99
South Korea — 99
Switzerland — 98
Finland — 98
Sweden — 98
Denmark — 98
Netherlands — 98
Norway — 98
Belgium — 98
Austria — 98
Ireland — 98
Portugal — 98
Greece — 98
Luxembourg — 98
Hungary — 98
Malta — 98
Liechtenstein — 98
Tier 2 — High Mobility with Minor Gaps (Scores 94–97)
Poland — 97
United Arab Emirates — 96
United States — 95
United Kingdom — 94
Canada — 94
Australia — 93
New Zealand — 93
Tier 3 — Strong Regional Power Passports (Scores 85–93)
Czech Republic — 92
Iceland — 92
Slovenia — 91
Estonia — 90
Latvia — 89
Lithuania — 89
Slovakia — 88
Chile — 87
Malaysia — 87
Israel — 86
I was harassed and detained every single time I went back. Always something different, never anything to actually do with who I actually am or anything I actually did or didn't do.
I have seriously never had a positive interaction with the US border force. Wether it's the TSA or another associated organisation (since I've been pestered by people who are not TSA).
I've been detained, questioned, randomly selected, given contradictory rules by different people, had things randomly confiscated and even been insulted.
I'm not confrontational, and I don't believe I stand out.
I have had exactly ONE positive interaction (in 2011) whereby I had accidentally travelled with a pocket knife in my checked luggage and due to the fact I was not allowed to check my luggage on the return journey (due to the train being delayed going into Newark; seriously, I understand why Americans distrust public transport) - I told the TSA agent about it and he was kind regarding it, offering condolences, but obviously destroying the knife.
I'm not sure if I'm on some kind of easing program to disincentivise me in particular from visiting the US, but I could easily see that if I was anything other than what I am in terms of race/religion/looks/citizenship: that I would presume that this was the reason.
And, for context, I've been to the US on average twice per year in the last 15 years, so this is my experience from around 30 trips, and 60-ish interactions with the international air apparatus.
It's a pretty decent country once I'm in though, though I wouldn't want to live there.
EDIT: I'm not sure why the parent is being downvoted, his anecdote is the same as mine.
The trick is to pay to not interact. Global Entry, TSA PreCheck with Digital ID, et cetera.
And for the record, I'm dark-eyed and brown skinned. There are absolutely racists in the Trump administration. But they don't seem to have co-opted this element yet. Instead, it just presents the classic American preference for wealth.
(Note: I'm not endorsing the system. TSA PreCheck makes sense; the fee for it does not. Same for Global Entry.)
One easy trick to world domination prison planet…
I'm not sure what I'm giving up by ceding fingerprints and a picture to a government agency that almost certainly already has both.
You seem to represent a rather is phenomenon in society though. For a lack of a better term at the moment; the shift or maybe even deliberate psychological manipulation of society, civilization, culture towards not only a passive, depressive state, but also a kind of self-harming, self-destructive, nihilistic state of “what does it even matter anymore” and “I probably deserve the abuse of my abusers” type of mentality. A variation of that is “I’m not sure what I’m giving up by ceding…” an odd fatalism.
Yes. I'm not endorsing the system. Just stating why folks on HN might be having wildly different experiences.
Broadly speaking, if you have to interact with border control or airport security, you're going to have a bad time. The stupid, lazy and mean are overrepresented in their ranks. You may have a slightly-worse time with particularly physical affects. But I've absolutely watched my British-accented white friend from Atlanta get singled out every time for fuckery by their TSA.
If, on the other hand, you get the unequal wealth treatment, you won't see a disparity. Because there isn't one. You're rarely interacting with a human being.
Global entry is a real difference, but you need to travel internationally quite a bit to make the application/renewal process worth it (conditional approval backlog is 12-24 months now, although it seems you skip to the front just in time to do interview-on-arrival on your next trip).
Unless they're taking liberties with your wife and children or something.
Every other interaction, I can't imagine being worse. Rude, tense, confusing, authoritarian with arbitrary detainment - with no acknowledgement of time or empathy for your own obligations (to board the plane for example); and heaven help you if you express your frustration.
https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/i...
"Yet in these suits, innocent women — including minor girls — who were not found with any contraband say CBP officers subjected them to harsh interrogation that led to indignities that included unreasonable strip searches while menstruating to prohibited genital probing. Some women were also handcuffed and transported to hospitals where, against their will, they underwent pelvic exams, X-rays and in one case, drugging via IV, according to suits. Invasive medical procedures require a detainee’s consent or a warrant. In two cases, women were billed for procedures."
Oh, I can help you with that!
> Arar was detained during a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis.[1] He was held without charges in solitary confinement in the United States for nearly two weeks, questioned, and denied meaningful access to a lawyer.[1][2] The US government suspected him of being a member of Al Qaeda and deported him, not to Canada, his current home and the passport on which he was travelling, but to Syria.[3][4] He was detained in Syria for almost a year, during which time he was tortured by Syrian authorities, according to the findings of a commission of inquiry ordered by the Canadian government, until his release to Canada. The Syrian government later stated that Arar was "completely innocent."[5][6] A Canadian commission publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, and the government of Canada later settled out of court with Arar. He received C$10.5 million and Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to Arar for Canada's role in his "terrible ordeal."[7][8] Arar's story is frequently referred to as "extraordinary rendition" but the US government insisted it was a case of deportation.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar
Hopefully, given that little intuition pump, you can also imagine that he could have died from the torture instead of ever returning home.
I look stereotypical MENA and haven't faced any extra screening, and I travel a lot for work both domestically and abroad, and I'm too lazy to get Global Entry or TSA Pre so I'm dealing with general TSA.
Did your friend maybe travel to an Arab country at some point in time that either faced significant instability, a country that borders Syria+Iraq, or to the West Bank via Jordan?
SFO, SeaTac, JFK, OHare, and ATX, with a decent showing for Logan, DCA, and RTP.
https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/08/06/immigration-lawyers-s...
I was routinely detained at passport control because there was a bad guy with my same name. It took some amount of time and being very polite to get me out of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#False_positives
> Numerous children (including many under the age of five, and some under the age of one) have generated false positives.
And at least on one occasion, a sitting US Senator: https://www.theregister.com/2004/08/19/senator_on_terror_wat...
Some may be confused by reading that or even scoff at it, but it’s really not any different than any other kind of fraud by deception where, e.g., you think you have a certain amount of assets with Bernie Madoff that make you rich, but in reality it’s all just fake and does not actually exist at all.
It’s just that Americans haven’t realized that their country has being defrauded out from under them, much like how the EU just snuck in and went from standardizing trade to co-opting democratic self-determination and just swiping national sovereignty out from under the people of Europe because the ruling class said “no take backs” and that’s just how it’s going to be now.
Where did that happen?
And, yet, the CBP can cause you any number of headaches and subject you to intimidation and humiliation prior to your actually being waved through -- especially if they deem you "difficult".
Similar to lots of the other comments in this thread, I'm subjected to additional screenings every time I come back into the country. I'm a completely average middle-aged white guy and I have no idea why this happens. Is it because I'm anxious? I have a somewhat common name; perhaps they've confused me with someone else? Was it because I was at Schipol the same time as The Underwear Bomber or because I went to Turkey on vacation? I will (probably) never know why but it's so unpleasant that I've stopped leaving the country for fun (something I used to love) and has had a real, negative effect on my relationship with my spouse.
I crossed the US-Canada land border with a non-US friend to go to a birthday party a while back; they sent us to secondary so my friend could get their passport stamped (their previous visa had run out). CBP took the opportunity to search our car and tried to convince us they found weed before letting us go (neither of us use it).
Another time my wife and I (both citizens) were crossing and the border agent gave us a hard time for having different last names.
I can't imagine what it's like for people with less privilege than I, but I'm already to the point where I stress about crossing the border. I bring a spare phone, wiped of anything interesting, I let my partners know when I'm at the crossing in case something happens; Paranoid? Possibly. But the potentiality of something going horribly wrong is through the roof, and there's increasingly little recourse. Yes, citizens especially should be insulated from this, but we're seeing egregious violations on so many fronts I don't want to trust that to hold.
People are not going to like hearing this, but everyone else who were merely made American citizens by process, has a bit of an increasingly minor risk of being denied entry if they or their first generation relative are deemed to have received their citizenship illicitly and or shown or even just accused of foreign ties, let alone any involvement of espionage or terrorism.
More likely is that even in cases of espionage and terrorism, the government would simply prefer permitting entry and then simply prosecuting people.
What counts as natural born is constantly subject to fuckery. (The Citizenshop Clause is all the Constitution has to say on citizenship, and it doesn’t directly address either naturalization or revocation.)It took Congress in 1924 to admit American Indians are born in America [1]. Meanwhile, we've created de facto exemptions on the positive side for e.g. John McCain [2] and Ted Cruz [3].
A future Congress (or potentially just the President, under Trump's precedents) could absolutely vote to strip citizenship from e.g. dual nationals or people who have travelled to this or that country.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Citizenship_Act
[2] https://hls.harvard.edu/bibliography/why-john-mccain-was-a-c...
[3] https://hls.harvard.edu/bibliography/why-john-mccain-was-a-c...
But to at least offer you some salvation from the memes you hold, as much as I didn’t like him, McCain was clearly a natural citizen as a function of his jus sanguinis birth to a legitimate American father. That is not an exception.
Additionally, it was not “admitted that Indians are born in America” as much as Congress did a little bit of magic to sidestep the fact that “Indians” had what up until recently still were effectively sovereign nations, and in some ways they still are, but kind of more like legal black holes and loopholes that supersede American law that everyone else is suppressed to follow, i.e., super-Americans. They weren’t in fact born in America, because the various types of “Indian” territories were effectively not America, regardless of the stunted and dull, rudimentary grasp on history, politics, governance, and reality the average person has.
Ironically, objectively speaking, the recent full recognition of Indian theories as American land with full rights while giving up sooner of their freedom and independence is arguably the last act of actual “colonialism” in human history as a function of its connection to the past. But that kind of thing is totally lost to the general public that has the ignorance of a bull in a China shop, and the maladjusted confidence of a redditor.
They can just say you aren't one, throw your passport in the bin and deport you to that prison in central America.
If you're lucky you'll have a family/lawyer that will notice you didn't get home and have the resources to get you back.
Edit: Thanks to the responses. My bad for missing that in the article.
> The loss of visa-free access to Brazil in April due to a lack of reciprocity, and the US being left out of China’s rapidly expanding visa-free list, marked the start of its downward slide. This was followed by adjustments from Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, which further eroded the US score while boosting other passports. Most recently, Somalia’s launch of a new eVisa system and Vietnam’s decision to exclude the US from its latest visa-free additions delivered the final blow, pushing it out of the Top 10.
Really? My visa is probably expired now but I remember my Chinese visa being sort of a headache to deal with 10 years back from the US. Certainly a couple different visas to there weren't "visa-free."
https://www.visaforchina.cn/DEL3_EN/tongzhigonggao/327343163...
And to be clear, this is not the previous restricted "X hours transit, don't leave the city" thing, but a full blown 30 day entry permit valid for the entire country (minus Tibet), any port of entry, any port of departure.
Yes, this is a massive departure from their previous policy, but yes, it's real. Having also gone through the regular China visa process multiple times in the past, I could hardly believe it myself when I used it earlier this year.
Until I tried to travel back a few years later and they didn't let me board the plane because they had changed to an e-visa scheme called eTA.
My own fault for not checking, but, in fairness, I didn't expect the agreements between Canada and the UK to have materially changed.
Whoa, Canada and the UK aren't western now? When did that happen?
If anything, dealing with WeChat and AliPay is much more of a headache.
I got one recently and it's not bad, except that it needs to be done in-person at an embassy based on the state you live in, so there's a 90% chance you'll have to trust a third party business next door to the embassy to walk your documents over and mail them back to you after. I would much rather be visa-free though, it was expensive and time consuming for no real reason.
How come there are more destinations than passports?
In practice, this means the index assigns more weight to passports accepted by nations with many island territories - like the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
Falsehood: if a person has a U.S. Passport, they must be a U.S. Citizen.
Fact: Non-citizens can have a U.S. Passport (people born in American Samoa).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Samoan_citizenship_an...
https://www.eternalandamans.com/havelock-island/radhanagar-b...
https://www.gokitetours.com/top-beaches-in-lakshadweep-you-m...
"Important" in this way? At least by the current methodology, it's fairly bias-free, which if you add "Countries that are more important than others weight more" to the mix you cannot call it bias-free anymore.
edit: it _SHOULD NOT MATTER_, but I grew up in Turkey, am half Persian, and am very liberal. If that matters to you, please think good and hard about what kind of person you have become.
What if I do? Is this index only for US citizens to make use of?
edit: here's the number of US visitors to each country in 2018 (the easiest year for me to find data on). This isn't a perfect comparison, because the amount of visitors will of course depend on the visa situation for each country, but it does give some feeling for how useful increased access would be
Barbados in 2018 had 204,830 US visitors -- https://www.caribjournal.com/2019/03/11/american-travelers-a...
China in 2018 had 2,485,000 US visitors (but this may be padded by the state media) -- https://gowithguide.com/blog/exploring-china-s-tourism-lands...
So China attracted approx 10x more US visitors, even though in 2018 it was much easier for Americans to go to Barbados than China. And I bet that gap has only grown in the last 7 years.
If you read the actual article, it seems a US passport is about as good as it always was. It seems like much of the change is various countries expanding visa free travel, just not to Americans. Before when I went to China or Vietnam, I had to get a visa. Now with this change in ranking...I still have to get a visa.
First off, I'd weight countries that grant visa-free access to relatively few other countries (e.g., China, USA, ECOWAS) more than countries that are comparatively more lenient (e.g. countries like Samoa, Tuvalu that grant visa-free access to everyone).
Secondly, I'd additionally weight for residency mobility - the ability to work and live in another country with few conditions (e.g. Schengen area, Common Travel Area, Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement, MERCOSUR, ECOWAS, CARICOM, Freedom of movement in the Gulf States). Countries like Canada, Japan and Singapore may score well on paper for travel mobility, but are definitely weaker than EU passports that allow you to migrate to where jobs are and improve your own economic outcomes.
- Visaless entry
- Ability to skip lines or fast track through immigration
- Embassy services
- Marriage prospect: Often US citizens were desirable or at least neutral partners for international relationships. Foreign nationals considered the option of relocating to America favorably. A partner may not want to relocate to the US now, or want a relationship with an American.
- General disapproval of Americans abroad in some countries
- Likelihood the government would intervene on your behalf. Brittney Griner / Travis King.
The Trump government does not seem as capable at governing. The Democrats seem to be be better at governing and favor bureaucracy more, whether this is true or perceived, I will not claim to know. The government itself is not funded/shut down currently which may impact embassies and clerical services. There does seem to be a general dislike of America and frustration building in many populations and presumably governments. The standing of America has greatly fallen in the world. While hostilities seem to be rising, America's ability to project soft and real power seem to be falling. This can impact some of the points above.
I am sure there are other points I have missed and factors I have overlooked. I would say that the general perception of the "strength" of a passport has fallen.
What nonsense is this? It's really frickin' hard for a normal person to acquire additional citizenships, and I think the easy "citizenship by decent" options that some Americans had access to are closing. There's no way the requisite long foreign residencies is becoming "normalized" in American society.
Maybe Prof. Peter J. Spiro only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships through investment, but if he does he should refrain on commenting on what's "normalized" because he needs to touch grass.
There used to be a bit of a taboo against having multiple citizenships. Now somebody like Travis Kalanick of Uber fame can pick up Saudi (!) citizenship and nobody bats an eye.
Why the heck would you want one of those as a foreigner? You'd lose consular access if you ever ran afoul of the government there.
• Going places that have visa-free travel for Saudis but not for US citizens.
• Evading other forms of discrimination against US citizens, for example, difficulty in opening Swiss bank accounts.
• Consular help from the Saudi consulate in third countries that are neither the US nor Saudi Arabia. Right now it's Saudi embassies rather than US embassies that murder journalists who criticize the head of state, but that could reverse within Travis's lifetime.
• Owning Saudi land and businesses. Many countries have restrictions on land ownership by non-citizens, and Saudi Arabia (one of the world's richest countries in solar resources) is one of them, although it isn't completely prohibited in all cases. Similarly for starting businesses.
• Residency options in third countries. Even today, there are probably countries where Saudi citizens can live more easily than US citizens; if I had to guess, I'd guess Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Morocco is famous, among other things, for being where Roland Barthes lived in order to have sex with a lot of young boys. I wouldn't venture to suggest that Travis is looking for that, but all three countries also have vast solar resources.
• Living in Saudi Arabia itself has its appeals. The Line project is not someplace I'd want to live, even if a significant fraction of it does get built (Arcosanti is more my speed) but it would at least be interesting to see.
That's what it sounds like to my ears. Plus, according to Wikipedia, anyway, he is a leading expert on dual citizenship. I suspect he lives in fairly rarified air and also that this is a special interest of his, so people who don't have the means required to have additional citizenships aren't really much on his radar.
That said, people don't necessarily have to be wealthy to do it (although I think they have to not be poor). A friend did it by living and working (in a field in demand) for enough decades in the country that he became eligible to apply for citizenship. He's nowhere near wealthy, but squarely middle class.
There are a lot of recent immigrants in the US.
Fewer than 2 in 5 Americans have a valid passport [1]. In some states, that approaches 1 in 5 [2].
So while prevalence of dual citizenship is around 0.3% to 1.5% of population [3], that represnts 0.8% to 4% of passport holders.
> only hangs out with very rich people who can buy some citizenships through investment
You may be underestimating the number of Americans with Canadian, Mexican and Caribbean heritage.
[1] https://today.yougov.com/travel/articles/35414-only-one-thir...
[2] https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/...
[3] https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
But OTOH there's a chart on this page that shows a longer term trend of nearly linear growth in US passport holder percentage from the 1990's: https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/japan-gets-there-first...
What proportion of the people with dual citizenship are naturalized citizens? I'd expect it's well north of 50%. And that's an entirely different thing than the "Americans will be acquiring additional citizenships in whatever way they can" we're discussing here.
ESTA/ETIAS gets automatically approved within a few minutes of paying for the fee (I guess this is true for 99.999% of applicants).
Very few countries allow people to just show up and cross the border. US citizens had that privilege in a lot of places, but it looks like it’s changing now.
That is not true of schemes like ESTA or ETIAS.
Some countries have visa-on-arrival schemes, which are the opposite of ESTA and ETIAS. The visa still exists as a formality (maybe due to reciprocity or as a tourist tax), but you need to do little beyond paying the fee to get one.
Edit: Searching around, this (2018) is exactly what I had in mind--travel freedom + settlement freedom: https://www.nationalityindex.com/
It pertains to a small number of countries that are agitated by lack of reciprocity; and then there's China. China being a nation that is directly supporting Russia's war against Ukraine. The same Russia that is very clearly plotting to attack NATO. Aka the China that the US is fighting a proxy war against in Ukraine. The same China that the US is actively preparing to go to war with over Taiwan if necessary. What exactly am I to expect from that situation?
Your analysis of the Ukraine war makes no sense.
The USA could well be heading for autarky. For the sake of USAians I hope not, for the rest of the world it would be good for us, in the way a heart attack can be good for your health.
I think the US will survive despite that.
>"Confident of their unlimited power, empires create unnecessary problems for themselves until they can no longer cope with them ... And the United States is now walking the Soviet Union's path, and its gait is confident and steady."
filibuster, gerrymandering, fptp, electoral college, supreme court, electric cars, J6, climate issues, Russia, aging congressmen, inequality, inflation ... each individually is (probably) solvable, but they just keep piling up like tetris.
If you actually believe this, you are welcome to short American stocks. See how that works out.
Would you say the surveillance state we've lived under since Bush is fine because the stock market is at an all time high? Similarly for the global inflation under COVID: is it fine since stocks went up?
Your remarks about "shorting the market if you think this" are not only ignorant but passive aggressive.