Australians like to think of themselves as welcome everywhere.
That transfers to our passports as well, and generally that’s true. According to the Henley Passport Index (HPI), the Australian passport rates as one of the world’s most desirable, along with a cohort that includes Canada, the Czech Republic, Greece and Malta. And we come in at eighth in the world for travel freedom.
Henley and Partners is an investment and migration consultancy based in London.
The HPI began in 2006 and ranks 199 passports according to the number of countries their citizens can travel to visa free.
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Each of the 199 passports on the list is checked against 227 possible travel destinations on the International Air Transport Association database. And if you are wondering why there are fewer passport countries than destinations, not all territories issue passports.
In short, it’s a quick way of viewing how the rest of the world likes you on a diplomatic and security level.
Anyway, it seems everyone loves Japan, as it is on top of the list with 193 visa-free destinations, followed by Singapore and South Korea with a score 192.
New Zealand beats us in seventh place, in a group including Belgium, Norway, Switzerland and the United States. If New Zealand could stop beating us at everything it would be great.
According to travel portal traveller.com, we’d be up there with New Zealand if we made Chile eligible for an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA).
What is an ETA you ask? Well, it’s an electronically stored authority equivalent to a visa that is linked to a passport number.
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Anyway, for whatever reason we won’t give them to Chilean visitors and instead charge them for a visitor visa that costs $380. Naturally Chile doesn’t like this, so charge Australians $358 for their equivalent to enter their country. This is called a reciprocity fee, but I am calling it the pointless fee, because it is.
Apparently, plenty of other countries work it out and organise something called a bilateral visa waiver agreement, but for some reason we can’t get it together with Chile. Sort it out guys.
Vietnam is another country that wants to make it if not hard, then slightly irritating for us. Australian travellers make up a large contingent of the tourism industry but we are still expected to pay $25 for an e-visa. Almost everyone else in the region does not need a visa for visits up to 30 days including Scandinavian passport holders for some reason.
Australians also have to get a visa for travel to Cambodia, but we can’t feel singled out here, Cambodia makes everyone get a visa but for countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Turkey also makes us get a visa at a cost of $60, while citizens of the EU, UK and New Zealand get in for free. New Zealand beats us again!
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I’m not feeling too bad about this since Turkey was ranked as an ‘extreme’ travel risk by security risk analysts Global Guardian for 2023 due to a predicted ground war with Kurdish-occupied territories in Syria.
And why is Japan first on the list? Everyone needs a visa to visit Japan since the pandemic, but everyone seems happy to welcome Japan without a visa. Seems a bit harsh, but probably has a bit to do with Japanese tourists’ reputation as quiet, law-abiding and high spending.
And if you are wondering who are the cellar dwellers on the list, Afghanistan is stone last. Its citizens are only allowed into 27 countries without a visa and the next three on the list are Iraq, 29, Syria, 30 and Pakistan 32.
Do you find visa requirements confusing? Have they improved over the years? Why not share your thoughts in the comments section below?
