Let's learn about passports!

I'm bored while "working" from home, so let's learn fun stuff about modern passports.

My inspiration (besides boredom) comes from having previously worked at an airport to help passengers with reduced mobility. In my 18 months doing this, I handled all kinds of travel documents.

To help with our lesson, let's use Passport Index [https://www.passportindex.org/]. They have some handy tools to determine the best passports in terms of how much freedom it gives the carrier in crossing international borders.

Let's get started with an example.

Why Mongolia?

I mean: just *look* at the design. It's badass!

Mongolia has a passport that ranks as the 62nd most mobile globally, a rank it shares with Kenya & Tunisia.

Where does that rank come from?

The basic formula is the number of countries that allow visa-free travel for Mongolian passport-holders plus the number of countries that allow for visa-on-arrival / visa online / etc. plus countries that use Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA).

Visa-free + visa-on-arrival + ETA = Global Mobility Score

Putting in Mongolia's numbers: 34 (visa-free) + 40 (visa-on-arrival) + 4 (ETA) = 78.

That leaves another 120 countries that require visas for Mongolian passport-holders. This will most likely involve filling out applications & paying fees at an embassy or a consulate.

Now for some fun bits of trivia!

Which country has the lowest global mobility score?

Poor Afghanistan... With a score of 38, only 3 countries globally allow Afghan passport-holders to travel visa-free.

Just about anywhere Afghans go, they will more likely than not need a visa.

Moving on to another topic: the continent with countries that have the lowest global mobility scores is Africa.

Which African country do you think has the best score?

South Africa has visa-free access 58 countries, visa-on-arrival with another 47, & ETA with an additional 5. This gives it a score of 110 & a rank of 45th worldwide.

Let's compare the best passport in Africa to the weakest passport among European Union members, a distinction which belongs to Cyprus.

Tied for 7th globally with Iceland, Cypriots can go to 121 other countries visa-free, another 7 with ETA, & 42 more with visa-on-arrival.

Even the weakest passport in the European Union has much greater mobility than the strongest passport in Africa. It's like racism still exists or something.

Fun bonus fact: Cyprus passport-holders seem to still need a visa for the United States. Most EU countries have a visa-waiver program with the States (basically ETA), but Cyprus remains an exception.

Moving on to some passport oddities...

Which Chinese passport do you think has the best score?

No, I don't mean the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China.

You may not know that mainland China actually has 3 distinct passports: one for the People's Republic of China, one for Macau, & one for Hong Kong.

The best of these passports goes to Hong Kong, with a global rank of 12th.

Staying in Asia, let's find out which country has the best global mobility score. Before we reveal it, here are some hints.

1) Only about 11% of the population of this country are citizens there. The others are guest workers & foreign residents who will almost certainly never naturalize.

2) They're rich (cuz of course!).

3) You have probably seen the place in action movies or on TV.

4) The government there is officially a constitutional monarchy, but don't let that fool you: the human rights record they have is atrocious.

Only 19 countries require UAE passport-holders to have a visa. Emiratis travel visa-free to 125 countries & another 8 with ETA.

It's interesting to see the combination of countries that require a visa for UAE citizens: Liberia, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, & the United States (among others). Strange to see these on the same list, isn't it?

Next, a fun observation about Haiti: they are overwhelmingly visa-free with visitors to their country. One of the few places that requires a visa just happens to be the only country with which they share a land border: the Dominican Republic.

Why Haiti? Why would y'all make your closest neighbors get a visa?

The two countries actually have a long history of fighting each other. Sad...

Next snippet: this one surprised me quite a bit.

Which Muslim-majority country in Southeast Asia has a passport that gives its people mobility comparable to that of many European Union (or European Economic Area) states?

Malaysia!

With a rank of 3rd worldwide (shared with Belgium, France, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Austria, Norway, & the Republic of Ireland), Malaysians have a passport that gives greater mobility than the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States.

Although, funny enough Malaysians still need ETA for the U.K. & a visa for both Canada & the U.S.

Let's wrap up with some tremendously rare passports.

First, y'all know that part of western Africa that's almost always greyed out in maps? Called Western Sahara, the area is claimed & mostly administered by Morocco.

But there is a sliver of land controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Their passports (recognized by no one as best as I can tell) look like this:

A penultimate peculiarity: would you believe that there is a partially recognized passport issued by a sovereign entity that doesn't control any physical land?

Well, that happens to exist.

The official name for this Catholic organization is (deep breath) the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes & of Malta.

Remember that these are not passports for the Republic of Malta. Malta is part of both the EU & Schengen, while the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is not. Got it?

The Order of Malta passport has some international recognition, meaning holders can travel internationally using this document alone (depending on where they go).

Strange, isn't it?

A final thought about passports: they seem boring. Most of the world only deals with renewing them every decade or so. But this is what we rely on when we travel abroad.

Look at all those planes that were in the air on the morning of November 14th, 2025.

The ones crossing the Atlantic Ocean or leaving one continent for another are almost certainly going to land somewhere that when the passengers disembark (and assuming they do not have a connecting flight in the transit area), they will have to proceed through passport control.

To get through, they need this little booklet that proves who they are. That they have a name. That they were born somewhere on a certain day. That they have jumped through the proper hoops to secure a visa or other necessary documentation.

It's weird that a person itself is not proof enough.

[Sources:
https://www.passportindex.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahrawi_passport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta_passport
https://www.flightradar24.com ]

Edit: thank you kindly for FP & the accolades.