The Ultimate Global Passport Guide. How much is a passport worth? Don’t worry things have not gotten so bad at YPT that we have gotten into the passport selling game (although never say never). Yet what are the different values and strengths of the passports of the world? What are the rarest, what are the easiest to obtain. All that and more in our our in depth Global Passport Guide.
How many countries issue passports?
This is a very tricky one to answer, your average country collector would say 193/195, the members of the UN. But, there are many colonies that issue their own pasports, such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands to name but 2.There are also numerous countries with several categories of passport, with the UK probably having the most, many of which do not even allow you to live in the UK.
You also have the whole China thing, where by Chinese thought process there are 4 Chinese passports, China, Hong Kong, Macao and the Republic of China. The Hong Kong passport is one of the strongest in the world. The Chinese one, well it really isn’t.
What is the strongest passport in the world?
What is the strongest passport in the world? That would be the the Japanese passport. This list changes every year and by strength we mean countries that can entered visa free with it. The Japanese passport allows visa free travel, or visa on arrival at a whopping 191 countries and territories, closely followed by Singapore in 190. Italy is the strongest non-Asian country at 4th place.
What is the weakest passport in the world?
We are going to ignore unrecognized countries on this one, they will get their own mention later, and indeed the most useless passport in the world has its own article. Lets concentrate on UN nations for this one. It used to be Somalia, not surprising when you can literally buy a Somali passport from the market in Hargeisa. But they’ve jumped up now. Let’s not even start on the Somaliland passport.
To read the difference between Somali and Somaliland click here.
The weakest passport currently is Afghanistan who can get visa free travel to 30 countries, one of them being Somalia.
Kosovo has the weakest of all European countries.
I thought it would be the North Korean passport?
In the interests of the Global Passport Guide the North Korean passport is quite strong and yes they can leave the country.
To read if North Koreans can travel click here.
To read where North Koreans can travel click here.
Most useless passport in the world?
Well you’d assume it would be Afghanistan, but if you are an recognized country it gets much worse. The Transnsitrian passport can only be used to visit other unrecognized countries.
To read about unrecognized countries click here.
To read about their useless passport click here.
Conversely the passport for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is not only recognized by Turkey, but other countries such as the UK, who although not recognizing the country will accept the passport.
What is the rarest passport in the world?
The world’s rarest passport belongs to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the one country in the world without land. Messing with your head yet?
You can read about these guys here.
They issue only 500 passports, if you ever get the chance to see one definitely get a snap of it.
Although again with that being said passports from the Vatican City and the Holy See (they are different) are pretty much equally as rare.
Is the Vatican City a country? Short answer is yes, but you can read why we say it is here.
Do any non-countries offer passports?
We will not count the SMOM as a non country, nor we will count regional passports such as the EU passport, no longer available in the UK…..
The main passport under this area would be UN passports, I once saw two UN passports, gotta say they are pretty cool. Obviously the UN does not have citizens, so these are also diplomatic passports.
Micronations and passports
Micronations are not to be confused with micronstates, such as San Marino and indeed the Vatican City. Micro nations are basically anything from pretend countries, to serious new country projects. Top of the list here would be Sealand. Sadly these passports have also been involved in serious crimes.
Read about the Dominion of Melchizedek here.
Global Passport Guide – Camouflage passports
This is some classic rip-off shit here! Passports issued in the names of former countries, so technically not breaking the law. Basically used for either breaking the law, or better technically pretending you are not American if terrorists capture you.
Good luck with that one…..
And that is the YPT Ultimate Global Passport Guide, whichever passport you use, use it for one of our tours.
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