World
Cost of Passport in World states
The passport might be a useless and extra booklet for many people but it is a very important and a must required document that is essential for international travel.
The cost of printing a passport is the same in almost all countries, but how much does it cost to get a passport? Or how cheap or expensive can a passport be in terms of local purchasing power? These are the questions that have been answered in an interesting study.
The average cost of obtaining a passport worldwide is $74.
The research reviewed government documents, websites, and other sources to determine the price of a passport in every country.
The report converted all foreign currencies to US dollars using market exchange rates as of January 2021.
For countries that offered passports with various booklet length and expiration dates, the price for the passport with the fewest pages and the furthest expiration date has been listed.
Looking at the dollar exchange rate in January 2021, The research report used data available for each country to estimate the cost of getting a passport there.
According to research, Syria tops the list of the most expensive passport in the world where locals have to spend $800 just to get a passport.
In just a decade, a Syrian passport would cost less than $9 but now the serious political situation, corruption, the destruction of border crossings and the fear of refugees in the West are all factors that travel for ordinary Syrians and making it difficult and expensive.
Lebanon has the second most expensive passport after Syria at $331, and even after spending so much money, Lebanese are allowed to enter only 40 countries.
An important aspect of this study is how easy it is for the people of each country to obtain a passport.
The value of the dollar in North America, for example, is very different in Central Africa. Therefore, the hourly wage is standardized to estimate how many hours it will take to collect the required amount for the passport.
In this regard, the African country Malawi is at the forefront, where the cost of a passport is $118, but to earn just that much money, a person has to work 983 hours.
Malawi is followed by Congo, Antigua and Barbuda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Mozambique, Benin, Yemen and Haiti.
According to research, the cost of making a passport in Pakistan is $34, but it will take 33 hours to earn it, which is much more than the neighbouring countries.
It costs 7.8 hours to get a $20 passport in India and $18 in China, which can be obtained with just 3.7 hours of hard work.
However, it takes more than 40 hours to get a $35 passport in Bangladesh.
The cheapest passport in the world is from the African country Madagascar, which is free. The next cheapest passport in the world is from Armenia, which costs only $2.
It costs just $14 to get a passport in the UAE, meaning anyone can get a passport with an average income of less than an hour. Although the cost of a US passport is very high at $14. The salaries in the USA are so high that the average American worker can get a passport for just half a day's work.
In contrast, there is a similarity in European countries, where it takes less than ten hours to obtain a passport in almost all EU states.
The only exception is Romania. In a sense, this information is a bit off the beaten track, as many EU citizens do not even have passports, as they are only allowed to travel to EU countries on their ID cards, which is what passports say. It becomes cheaper.
Assessing the cost and the value of the passport, Syria has the worst passport where even after getting a passport for an enormous $800 and holder is only allowed to enter a handful of countries. Armenia's $2 passport is the best, which allows the traveller to enter 63 countries.
But UAE passports are more attractive, where a person can get a passport for $14 and get direct access to 170 countries.
15 more countries can be travelled without a visa with a US passport. South Korea's passport is also amazing, which can be obtained for only $32 which a Korean can get with an average income of 1.6 hours, and this passport can give him access to 189 countries.
Japan and Singapore are the countries whose passports give access to more than 191 and 190 countries respectively.