Australia is the country that charges its citizens the most to obtain a passport (218 euros), according to data released by consulting company William Russell. It’s followed by Mexico (161 euros) and Switzerland (133 euros). Italy ranked fourth (128 euros) followed by the United Sates (123 euros).
New Zealand came sixth (121 euros), then Chile (120 euros), Canada (118 euros), Japan (109 euros), and Turkey (104 euros). The UK shared 12th place with Greece (95 euros). A Norwegian passport costs 62 euros and Sweden 43 euros. Spanish citizens are charged 31 euros. The least expensive one from the list the Czech passport with a cost of 26 euros. Conversely, Mexico is the country that charges the least for a student visa at an average fee of €34.
William Russell published the list based on data from the Global Passport Fees 2023 list, which ranks the 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The research also includes the varying cost of tourist, student, and work visas in different countries.
In terms of visas, the country charging the most for a tourist visa is the United States, with an average fee of 117 euros. As well as the standard requirements for tourist visas, you may also be asked about the purpose of your trip, evidence of employment/family ties, and your ability to cover the costs of the trip.
The country with the second highest price for a tourist visa is New Zealand, with an average fee of 97 euros. New Zealand tourist visas allow you to include your partner and dependent children (aged 19 and under) in the same visa application. The country with the third highest tourist visa costs is Australia, with an average fee of 83 euros.
In January of this year, Henley & Partners revealed its ranking for the most powerful passports in 2023. Japan topped the Henley Passport Index for the fifth year in a row. The Index is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
It is the original ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. Japanese citizens are now able to visit an astonishing 193 destinations out of 227 around the world visa-free, while South Koreans and Singaporeans, whose countries are tied in 2nd place on the index, enjoy a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 192. The UK and the US remain in 6th and 7th places, with scores of 187 and 186, respectively, and it appears increasingly unlikely that either country will ever regain the top spot on the index which they jointly held nearly a decade ago in 2014.
With global travel now at around 75% of pre-pandemic levels, those with the opportunity to do so appear to be embracing what has been termed ‘revenge travel’. But deeper analysis of the index reveals the darker side to this optimistic picture. Afghanistan remains firmly at the bottom of the index, with a score of just 27 – 166 fewer visa-free destinations than Japan, which represents the widest global mobility gap in the index’s 18-year history.
