11 ms·

The Most Desirable Passports On Earth Don’t Include America’s

98 points by raphar 10y ago

visarga 10y ago
It should weigh each visa by the number of people who want to travel to that destination - it's not the same to get a visa to US and Ukraine.
reddytowns 10y ago
The title should be "The Most Desirable Passports on Earth Don’t Include America’s", or if you must "The Most Desirable Passports on Earth Don’t Include America’s Passport". Visa doesn't make sense here.
- CalRobert 10y ago
  Agreed; I thought this article would be about countries who treat you unfavourably if you've gotten a visa to visit the US.
- jwilk 10y ago
  The original title doesn't include "Visa".
- sctb 10y ago
  Thank you, a moderator updated the title a little while ago.
paulddraper 10y ago
Naturally European countries will be the most open; the point of the EU is to provide a federalized government and reduce divisions. It's not unlike the federalized state created by the American colonies in the 18th century: no taxes on inter-state trade, no inter-state immigration restrictions, standard docs, etc.
eigenvector 10y ago
They don't seem to have taken into account the propensity of certain governments (mostly the US and UK) to undertake extreme measures to get their citizens out of trouble in foreign countries, up to and including mass evacuations and clandestine military operations. That's a feature Luxembourg doesn't offer.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Are there any examples of this? Where Americans got rescued but people of another country were left behind? I only have vague recollections of articles of people complaining of the massive bills the US charges for rescue operations, and that Anthony Bourdain Beirut episode where the Americans were some of the last out, after such military powerhouses such as Sweden. Wouldn't a country like Luxembourg have an agreement with an ally? You have countries where the US has no diplomatic presence - e.g. the US doesn't have an embassy in North Korea, and Americans have to use the Swedish embassy if they need protection.
  - eigenvector 10y ago
    One example would be the tepid responses of most governments to having ships flying their flag hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. The first time a US-flagged ship was hijacked, well, the result became a Tom Hanks movie because the US government responded with overwhelming military force. Pretty much any instance where the military has been sent in to rescue a country's nationals abroad is limited to the countries that have that kind of military capability, the ability to deploy it rapidly and the willingness to use it. Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barras http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9307833/How-the-British-hostages-were-rescued-in-Afghanistan.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Peacemaker_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Peacemaker_hostage_c... Is this to say that the US or UK will always rescue its citizens abroad? No. But there are types of rescues that only the US, UK, France, and maybe Russia are capable of mounting.
coldtea 10y ago
What's the "most desirable passport" depends on how many want to get citizenship to the country issuing it (which for the US is quite a lot), not on how other countries receive it's owners.
- RyanZAG 10y ago
  That's correct. What this ranking is about is "world's most valuable passport for an individual who wishes to live and work in multiple countries around the world". Still a valuable ranking, but it's a very specific one for a very specific type of person.
- grecy 10y ago
  > how many want to get citizenship to the country issuing it (which for the US is quite a lot) You're right that for the US it's a lot, though in my experience that's just because Hollywood is the best marketing agency on the planet, not because people make a well-reasoned decision on where to live. I spent two years all over Latin America, and have now been in West Africa for 6 months. I meet people every single day that say they want to live in America. When I ask why, they say "because life is perfect there. Everyone has lots of money. Life is easy. There is no disease. There is no poverty. Everyone has lots of food. Everyone has a huge house with a beach view." etc. When I explain that there are homeless people, people that lose their jobs, and people who struggle to make ends meet while working huge hours, people are completely disbelieving. They think I'm lying, because the TV told them otherwise, and of course people believe the TV more than some random guy. When I suggest there are tons of other great countries (Australia, Canada, Scandinavian countries, etc.) they could live, they just shrug and say "I want America". Hollywood has done a very good job of marketing America, but like all marketing, a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >You're right that for the US it's a lot, though in my experience that's just because Hollywood is the best marketing agency on the planet, not because people make a well-reasoned decision on where to live. Well, that's one reason. Another reason is plain business opportunities, and an (often misinformed, depending on the industry) idea that it's easy to make it big, money-wise in America. In some fields, of course, this is truer than others. Of course Americans also overestimate the degree to which other people in the world want to get into America -- judging from pre-WWII immigration from rural Europe (which most of it was), or from modern-day immigration for developing countries. People from already developed countries (e.g. western Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, etc.) don't particularly care.
moonshinefe 10y ago
"The U.S., by comparison, taxes citizens’ income no matter where it’s earned." This is a common statement I see pretty often on the internet, often in the context of bashing the US. However, there's a big asterisk there if you look the rules up. If you're not making over 6 figures, you still have to file I believe, but you don't pay taxes. So the vast majority of Americans abroad are not paying taxes back to the US ($100800 / year is the cut off by the looks of it)[1]. I'm not saying it isn't annoying still to file with the IRS or there aren't people who are over the threshold getting burned, I just feel it's often a glossed over detail that puts the US in an unnecessarily harsh light, considering, again, most people won't be penalized financially here. [1] https://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myths/ https://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myt...
- fierarul 10y ago
  You are ignoring the $10,000-per-year fines for failing to file FBAR forms that spooked a lot of expats with small companies abroad.
  - moonshinefe 10y ago
    I don't believe so, my last sentence mentions I acknowledge filing forms to a different country is annoying and an additional burden. It's certainly not the US only who penalizes people for not filing legally required tax forms on time.
    - fierarul 10y ago
      The IRS had several amnesty programs FBAR-related because so few people knew about them, even those that did send their tax papers as required!
- DrJokepu 10y ago
  Also, you get Foreign Tax Credit for income tax paid abroad, which means that even if you earn more than the Foreign Income Exclusion Threshold ($100,800 in 2015) in practice you will only pay the IRS any income tax if you live in a country where the income tax rates are lower than the US federal income tax rates, which is not common (although state income taxes sometimes make this a bit more complicated). In practice this means that US persons living abroad typically only pay US income tax if they make decent money and the local taxes are lower than those in the US and even then they only pay the difference. You still need to file your tax returns every year though.
robteix 10y ago
The title is wrong as it includes a piece of the abstract. The original title is "The Most Desirable Passports On Earth Don’t Include America’s." Please someone remove the "visa" at the end as it makes no sense
- sctb 10y ago
  Thanks! A moderator updated the title.
song 10y ago
Their freedom score doesn't really make sense (in the pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Passport-Index-2017.pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Pas...). For example, they give Malaysia 50, the highest score while giving 30 to France. Don't get me wrong, I love that country but it has rigged elections, no real freedom of press (Malaysia Kini an opposition website was censored during some of the elections by blocking their DNS), politicians from the opposition are imprisoned on spurious charges (Anwar for example) and corruption is endemic. Japan which also has 50 is not a shining example of Press freedom, it's a country where innocent until proven guilty doesn't really hold (more than 99% conviction rate) and where police can detain someone for 3 weeks without charges being filled. That said, I agree that France doesn't deserve the top score either due to new surveillance laws following terrorist attacks and due to the state of their prisons compared to the rest of EU but they shouldn't be ranked lower in Freedom than Japan and Malaysia. Here's the text of how they describe how they calculate the Freedom Index they use for their ranking: The ability of citizens to live freely is responsible for 10% of each country’s total ranking. We believe that freedom of speech and of the press is a good thing, and imposing laws on non-resident citizens is generally a bad idea. This index relied on data regarding mandatory military service, government spying programs, incarceration rate, and laws targeting non-resident citizens (such as the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), as well as the World Press Freedom Index and Economic Freedom Index to determine how free citizens of each country are, particularly non-resident citizens. Each country was assigned a score from 10 to 50 based on our proprietary blend of these factors, with 10 being the least free and 50 being the most free.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  I thought this particular freedom index only related to travel, e.g whether coming and going is easy, whether you are taxed for income earned abroad and so on?
  - song 10y ago
    From their PDF, https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Passport-Index-2017.pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Pas... They have multiple factor in their ranking. One of them is the freedom index which is described as: The ability of citizens to live freely is responsible for 10% of each country’s total ranking. We believe that freedom of speech and of the press is a good thing, and imposing laws on non-resident citizens is generally a bad idea. This index relied on data regarding mandatory military service, government spying programs, incarceration rate, and laws targeting non-resident citizens (such as the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), as well as the World Press Freedom Index and Economic Freedom Index to determine how free citizens of each country are, particularly non-resident citizens. Each country was assigned a score from 10 to 50 based on our proprietary blend of these factors, with 10 being the least free and 50 being the most free.
nomercy400 10y ago
Only 10 points for dual citizenship for the Netherlands? Okay, it is not allowed by law, with exceptions, but when about 10% of your population holds dual passports, you could say it isn't enforced.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  That wouldn't be that hard, really. Norway doesn't allow it... but there are exceptions. Currently, many folks from the US don't have to give up their American citizenship because the fee is considered a burden if it is over 4% of income (2% if one has children). Some countries find it treasonous to get drop their citizenship, and some just refuse to do things or take so long the regulation is a burden.
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  Ten percent of the Netherlands holds dual passports? That sounded high to me (dual Dutch-American citizen) so I looked it up, figured I'd post the stats I found: The Dutch population is 17.1MM, there are 1.3MM people with dual Dutch nationality [0]. The majority are Moroccan (321k) and Turkish (312k) people who acquired both Dutch and Turkish/Moroccan citizenship upon birth. Another 270k or so are EU citizens, plus a handful of Asians. Depending on the country, between 30-70% of people will have a passport, so my estimate is that 60% of dual citizens in this case will have two passports (may be lower as Turkish citizens can enter Turkey on another passport.) If 80% of dual citizens have both passports, then 6% of Dutch citizens own two passports; if 60% of dual citizens have both passports then 4% of Dutch citizens own two passports. Also worth noting there can be some very strange situations here - for example I (a Dutch/US citizen) moved from the US and lived in the Netherlands for almost a year before acquiring a Dutch passport. [0] http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=70798NED&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0-6,21,30,51,116,187&D4=a&HD=150728-1318&HDR=T,G1,G3&STB=G2 http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...
corford 10y ago
Interestingly, Portugal (13 on the list) would jump to number 1 (with a score of 115) if they factored in the NHR scheme which gives new residents a 10 year tax break on foreign source income (though admittedly there are some strings attached to this - more info here: http://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/NR/rdonlyres/D0C80C76-3DA8-4B90-A1E4-FF53BD34EF95/0/IRS_RNH_EN.pdf http://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/NR/rdonlyres/D0C80C76-3...).
vacri 10y ago
Traveling in Vietnam, I met a woman with three passports. She sounded English, considered herself Dutch, but traveled on her US passport. Why? Because when you get into trouble in a foreign country, the US consulates like to flex their muscle, whereas most others, UK included, tend to just say "well, that was stupid of you". They don't seem to have taken that kind of thing into account in their rankings.
- owenversteeg 10y ago
  I travel a lot and 'only' have two passports (Dutch/American.) I usually travel on my Dutch one because of visa restrictions, and I doubt using my Dutch one would at all prevent the US consulates from helping me. That said, I get your point - it can be nice to know "if I get into serious trouble, the US will probably work hard to get me home safe". That's not to say the Netherlands won't, and I admire the foreign policy positions of the Netherlands, but ultimately "annoy the US" is a lot scarier than "annoy the Netherlands", and it's something valuable to keep in mind.
- FabHK 10y ago
  Does she (or you) have any evidence for that? The US has a well-known policy of not paying ransom for kidnapped citizens abroad, and apparently doesn't even allow families to pay ransom [1]. Other governments huff and puff about it (nobody wants to encourage terrorist kidnappings), but by and large tend to bail out their citizens. Furthermore, if you get in trouble with terrorists, I think the US passport is probably among the worst to have. With law enforcement, I'm not sure. But, if you get in trouble with law enforcement in Iran or China or Vietnam, you think they'd be more inclined to be helpful to US citizens? Either way, one would have to look at statistics and detail to make an informed decision, but at first approximation I think she'd be better off traveling on her Dutch passport on that score. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-04/u-s-ransom-policy-is-a-mistake https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-04/u-s-ranso...
shawnps 10y ago
I know many people in tech from non-US countries who went through a lot of trouble to get hired on H1B visas. The power of the US passport (for engineers) is the ability to work legally in the US.
- _of 10y ago
  Mostly India and China?
Mikeb85 10y ago
Canada #2 among countries not physically located in Europe, not bad. Guess I don't have to trade in my passport anytime soon. A US passport would likely be more valuable if the IRS didn't demand so much of non-resident citizens.
rwmj 10y ago
I wonder how far down the table Brexit will take us.
- MrInvisible 10y ago
  In the direction of greater freedom and a stronger economy, like the US and Trump.
- joshvm 10y ago
  The main downside of Brexit, practically speaking, is that you can no longer randomly move to an EU country and get a job (I'm very much pro-remain). The ranking seems to only weight visa-free travel, which will almost certainly remain after we leave the EU. We would probably lose out in the perception score, but I suspect that's more "Are lots of terrorists from your country?" than "Boo, you left the EU". Currently we can access 175 countries visa-free, that's unlikely to change much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_citizens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_... The exceptions that people are most likely to encounter are Russia and China. The remaining countries are largely in unstable parts of Africa and the Middle East. The differences between the top countries is mostly statistical noise. Oddly enough you can travel to Mongolia without a visa if you're a German citizen, but not if you're British. Germany also gets visa-free access to Iran, which the UK doesn't.
posterboy 10y ago
To the title: not so, and not because I disagree with the sentiment, but because desirable has neither a comparative nor a superlative. So I parse it as not desirable at all, which the article sure won't claim. (but I aint gonna read it; too busy arguing semantics)
MrInvisible 10y ago
Yes, this is in no way globalist propaganda in order to defame Trump. Swedenistan is perfect country. Why, just other day Muslims come and rape my daughter--very inclusive!
- diego_moita 10y ago
  Here I see HN discourse slowly descending to the /r/the_donald and 4chan level of paranoia and hysteria.
  - pharrington 10y ago
    Nope. Trolls and hysterics have always been on HN. The moderation here is pretty good. Flag and move on.
    - MrInvisible 10y ago
      Yes. I agree. People who dare to look up the statistics about rape in Sweden--especially Malmo--are racists and need to be shunned.
andersonvom 10y ago
The values in the original PDF don't really add up [1]. It doesn't really change much, but it's still weird. If you apply the formula in the PDF to the listed values, they're all 1-5 points off: Each country’s value in each category is given the indicated weighting to achieve a country’s total score using the formula ((Visa Free Travel x 0.5) + (Taxation x 0.3) + (Perception x 0.1) + (Dual Citizenship x 0.1) + (Overall Freedom x 0.1)). [1]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vXSsukPDoqSwXPbR-FKtmRkZoiwHKZ1i7D_QFKhWvAk/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vXSsukPDoqSwXPbR-FKt...

98 points by raphar 10y ago

It should weigh each visa by the number of people who want to travel to that destination - it's not the same to get a visa to US and Ukraine.

reddytowns 10y ago

The title should be "The Most Desirable Passports on Earth Don’t Include America’s", or if you must "The Most Desirable Passports on Earth Don’t Include America’s Passport". Visa doesn't make sense here.

CalRobert 10y ago
Agreed; I thought this article would be about countries who treat you unfavourably if you've gotten a visa to visit the US.
jwilk 10y ago
The original title doesn't include "Visa".
sctb 10y ago
Thank you, a moderator updated the title a little while ago.

paulddraper 10y ago

Naturally European countries will be the most open; the point of the EU is to provide a federalized government and reduce divisions. It's not unlike the federalized state created by the American colonies in the 18th century: no taxes on inter-state trade, no inter-state immigration restrictions, standard docs, etc.

eigenvector 10y ago

They don't seem to have taken into account the propensity of certain governments (mostly the US and UK) to undertake extreme measures to get their citizens out of trouble in foreign countries, up to and including mass evacuations and clandestine military operations. That's a feature Luxembourg doesn't offer.

kalleboo 10y ago
Are there any examples of this? Where Americans got rescued but people of another country were left behind? I only have vague recollections of articles of people complaining of the massive bills the US charges for rescue operations, and that Anthony Bourdain Beirut episode where the Americans were some of the last out, after such military powerhouses such as Sweden. Wouldn't a country like Luxembourg have an agreement with an ally? You have countries where the US has no diplomatic presence - e.g. the US doesn't have an embassy in North Korea, and Americans have to use the Swedish embassy if they need protection.
- eigenvector 10y ago
  One example would be the tepid responses of most governments to having ships flying their flag hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. The first time a US-flagged ship was hijacked, well, the result became a Tom Hanks movie because the US government responded with overwhelming military force. Pretty much any instance where the military has been sent in to rescue a country's nationals abroad is limited to the countries that have that kind of military capability, the ability to deploy it rapidly and the willingness to use it. Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barras http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9307833/How-the-British-hostages-were-rescued-in-Afghanistan.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Peacemaker_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Peacemaker_hostage_c... Is this to say that the US or UK will always rescue its citizens abroad? No. But there are types of rescues that only the US, UK, France, and maybe Russia are capable of mounting.

coldtea 10y ago

What's the "most desirable passport" depends on how many want to get citizenship to the country issuing it (which for the US is quite a lot), not on how other countries receive it's owners.

RyanZAG 10y ago
That's correct. What this ranking is about is "world's most valuable passport for an individual who wishes to live and work in multiple countries around the world". Still a valuable ranking, but it's a very specific one for a very specific type of person.
grecy 10y ago
> how many want to get citizenship to the country issuing it (which for the US is quite a lot) You're right that for the US it's a lot, though in my experience that's just because Hollywood is the best marketing agency on the planet, not because people make a well-reasoned decision on where to live. I spent two years all over Latin America, and have now been in West Africa for 6 months. I meet people every single day that say they want to live in America. When I ask why, they say "because life is perfect there. Everyone has lots of money. Life is easy. There is no disease. There is no poverty. Everyone has lots of food. Everyone has a huge house with a beach view." etc. When I explain that there are homeless people, people that lose their jobs, and people who struggle to make ends meet while working huge hours, people are completely disbelieving. They think I'm lying, because the TV told them otherwise, and of course people believe the TV more than some random guy. When I suggest there are tons of other great countries (Australia, Canada, Scandinavian countries, etc.) they could live, they just shrug and say "I want America". Hollywood has done a very good job of marketing America, but like all marketing, a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >You're right that for the US it's a lot, though in my experience that's just because Hollywood is the best marketing agency on the planet, not because people make a well-reasoned decision on where to live. Well, that's one reason. Another reason is plain business opportunities, and an (often misinformed, depending on the industry) idea that it's easy to make it big, money-wise in America. In some fields, of course, this is truer than others. Of course Americans also overestimate the degree to which other people in the world want to get into America -- judging from pre-WWII immigration from rural Europe (which most of it was), or from modern-day immigration for developing countries. People from already developed countries (e.g. western Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, etc.) don't particularly care.

moonshinefe 10y ago

"The U.S., by comparison, taxes citizens’ income no matter where it’s earned." This is a common statement I see pretty often on the internet, often in the context of bashing the US. However, there's a big asterisk there if you look the rules up. If you're not making over 6 figures, you still have to file I believe, but you don't pay taxes. So the vast majority of Americans abroad are not paying taxes back to the US ($100800 / year is the cut off by the looks of it)[1]. I'm not saying it isn't annoying still to file with the IRS or there aren't people who are over the threshold getting burned, I just feel it's often a glossed over detail that puts the US in an unnecessarily harsh light, considering, again, most people won't be penalized financially here. [1] https://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myths/ https://time.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myt...

fierarul 10y ago
You are ignoring the $10,000-per-year fines for failing to file FBAR forms that spooked a lot of expats with small companies abroad.
- moonshinefe 10y ago
  I don't believe so, my last sentence mentions I acknowledge filing forms to a different country is annoying and an additional burden. It's certainly not the US only who penalizes people for not filing legally required tax forms on time.
  - fierarul 10y ago
    The IRS had several amnesty programs FBAR-related because so few people knew about them, even those that did send their tax papers as required!
DrJokepu 10y ago
Also, you get Foreign Tax Credit for income tax paid abroad, which means that even if you earn more than the Foreign Income Exclusion Threshold ($100,800 in 2015) in practice you will only pay the IRS any income tax if you live in a country where the income tax rates are lower than the US federal income tax rates, which is not common (although state income taxes sometimes make this a bit more complicated). In practice this means that US persons living abroad typically only pay US income tax if they make decent money and the local taxes are lower than those in the US and even then they only pay the difference. You still need to file your tax returns every year though.

robteix 10y ago

The title is wrong as it includes a piece of the abstract. The original title is "The Most Desirable Passports On Earth Don’t Include America’s." Please someone remove the "visa" at the end as it makes no sense

sctb 10y ago
Thanks! A moderator updated the title.

song 10y ago

Their freedom score doesn't really make sense (in the pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Passport-Index-2017.pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Pas...). For example, they give Malaysia 50, the highest score while giving 30 to France. Don't get me wrong, I love that country but it has rigged elections, no real freedom of press (Malaysia Kini an opposition website was censored during some of the elections by blocking their DNS), politicians from the opposition are imprisoned on spurious charges (Anwar for example) and corruption is endemic. Japan which also has 50 is not a shining example of Press freedom, it's a country where innocent until proven guilty doesn't really hold (more than 99% conviction rate) and where police can detain someone for 3 weeks without charges being filled. That said, I agree that France doesn't deserve the top score either due to new surveillance laws following terrorist attacks and due to the state of their prisons compared to the rest of EU but they shouldn't be ranked lower in Freedom than Japan and Malaysia. Here's the text of how they describe how they calculate the Freedom Index they use for their ranking: The ability of citizens to live freely is responsible for 10% of each country’s total ranking. We believe that freedom of speech and of the press is a good thing, and imposing laws on non-resident citizens is generally a bad idea. This index relied on data regarding mandatory military service, government spying programs, incarceration rate, and laws targeting non-resident citizens (such as the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), as well as the World Press Freedom Index and Economic Freedom Index to determine how free citizens of each country are, particularly non-resident citizens. Each country was assigned a score from 10 to 50 based on our proprietary blend of these factors, with 10 being the least free and 50 being the most free.

alkonaut 10y ago
I thought this particular freedom index only related to travel, e.g whether coming and going is easy, whether you are taxed for income earned abroad and so on?
- song 10y ago
  From their PDF, https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Passport-Index-2017.pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nomadcapitalist/Nomad-Pas... They have multiple factor in their ranking. One of them is the freedom index which is described as: The ability of citizens to live freely is responsible for 10% of each country’s total ranking. We believe that freedom of speech and of the press is a good thing, and imposing laws on non-resident citizens is generally a bad idea. This index relied on data regarding mandatory military service, government spying programs, incarceration rate, and laws targeting non-resident citizens (such as the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), as well as the World Press Freedom Index and Economic Freedom Index to determine how free citizens of each country are, particularly non-resident citizens. Each country was assigned a score from 10 to 50 based on our proprietary blend of these factors, with 10 being the least free and 50 being the most free.

nomercy400 10y ago

Only 10 points for dual citizenship for the Netherlands? Okay, it is not allowed by law, with exceptions, but when about 10% of your population holds dual passports, you could say it isn't enforced.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago
That wouldn't be that hard, really. Norway doesn't allow it... but there are exceptions. Currently, many folks from the US don't have to give up their American citizenship because the fee is considered a burden if it is over 4% of income (2% if one has children). Some countries find it treasonous to get drop their citizenship, and some just refuse to do things or take so long the regulation is a burden.
owenversteeg 10y ago
Ten percent of the Netherlands holds dual passports? That sounded high to me (dual Dutch-American citizen) so I looked it up, figured I'd post the stats I found: The Dutch population is 17.1MM, there are 1.3MM people with dual Dutch nationality [0]. The majority are Moroccan (321k) and Turkish (312k) people who acquired both Dutch and Turkish/Moroccan citizenship upon birth. Another 270k or so are EU citizens, plus a handful of Asians. Depending on the country, between 30-70% of people will have a passport, so my estimate is that 60% of dual citizens in this case will have two passports (may be lower as Turkish citizens can enter Turkey on another passport.) If 80% of dual citizens have both passports, then 6% of Dutch citizens own two passports; if 60% of dual citizens have both passports then 4% of Dutch citizens own two passports. Also worth noting there can be some very strange situations here - for example I (a Dutch/US citizen) moved from the US and lived in the Netherlands for almost a year before acquiring a Dutch passport. [0] http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=70798NED&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0-6,21,30,51,116,187&D4=a&HD=150728-1318&HDR=T,G1,G3&STB=G2 http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?VW=T&DM=SLNL&PA=...

corford 10y ago

Interestingly, Portugal (13 on the list) would jump to number 1 (with a score of 115) if they factored in the NHR scheme which gives new residents a 10 year tax break on foreign source income (though admittedly there are some strings attached to this - more info here: http://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/NR/rdonlyres/D0C80C76-3DA8-4B90-A1E4-FF53BD34EF95/0/IRS_RNH_EN.pdf http://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/NR/rdonlyres/D0C80C76-3...).

vacri 10y ago

Traveling in Vietnam, I met a woman with three passports. She sounded English, considered herself Dutch, but traveled on her US passport. Why? Because when you get into trouble in a foreign country, the US consulates like to flex their muscle, whereas most others, UK included, tend to just say "well, that was stupid of you". They don't seem to have taken that kind of thing into account in their rankings.

owenversteeg 10y ago
I travel a lot and 'only' have two passports (Dutch/American.) I usually travel on my Dutch one because of visa restrictions, and I doubt using my Dutch one would at all prevent the US consulates from helping me. That said, I get your point - it can be nice to know "if I get into serious trouble, the US will probably work hard to get me home safe". That's not to say the Netherlands won't, and I admire the foreign policy positions of the Netherlands, but ultimately "annoy the US" is a lot scarier than "annoy the Netherlands", and it's something valuable to keep in mind.
FabHK 10y ago
Does she (or you) have any evidence for that? The US has a well-known policy of not paying ransom for kidnapped citizens abroad, and apparently doesn't even allow families to pay ransom [1]. Other governments huff and puff about it (nobody wants to encourage terrorist kidnappings), but by and large tend to bail out their citizens. Furthermore, if you get in trouble with terrorists, I think the US passport is probably among the worst to have. With law enforcement, I'm not sure. But, if you get in trouble with law enforcement in Iran or China or Vietnam, you think they'd be more inclined to be helpful to US citizens? Either way, one would have to look at statistics and detail to make an informed decision, but at first approximation I think she'd be better off traveling on her Dutch passport on that score. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-04/u-s-ransom-policy-is-a-mistake https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-04/u-s-ranso...

shawnps 10y ago

I know many people in tech from non-US countries who went through a lot of trouble to get hired on H1B visas. The power of the US passport (for engineers) is the ability to work legally in the US.

_of 10y ago
Mostly India and China?

Mikeb85 10y ago

Canada #2 among countries not physically located in Europe, not bad. Guess I don't have to trade in my passport anytime soon. A US passport would likely be more valuable if the IRS didn't demand so much of non-resident citizens.

rwmj 10y ago

I wonder how far down the table Brexit will take us.

MrInvisible 10y ago
In the direction of greater freedom and a stronger economy, like the US and Trump.
joshvm 10y ago
The main downside of Brexit, practically speaking, is that you can no longer randomly move to an EU country and get a job (I'm very much pro-remain). The ranking seems to only weight visa-free travel, which will almost certainly remain after we leave the EU. We would probably lose out in the perception score, but I suspect that's more "Are lots of terrorists from your country?" than "Boo, you left the EU". Currently we can access 175 countries visa-free, that's unlikely to change much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_citizens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_... The exceptions that people are most likely to encounter are Russia and China. The remaining countries are largely in unstable parts of Africa and the Middle East. The differences between the top countries is mostly statistical noise. Oddly enough you can travel to Mongolia without a visa if you're a German citizen, but not if you're British. Germany also gets visa-free access to Iran, which the UK doesn't.

posterboy 10y ago

To the title: not so, and not because I disagree with the sentiment, but because desirable has neither a comparative nor a superlative. So I parse it as not desirable at all, which the article sure won't claim. (but I aint gonna read it; too busy arguing semantics)

MrInvisible 10y ago

Yes, this is in no way globalist propaganda in order to defame Trump. Swedenistan is perfect country. Why, just other day Muslims come and rape my daughter--very inclusive!

diego_moita 10y ago
Here I see HN discourse slowly descending to the /r/the_donald and 4chan level of paranoia and hysteria.
- pharrington 10y ago
  Nope. Trolls and hysterics have always been on HN. The moderation here is pretty good. Flag and move on.
  - MrInvisible 10y ago
    Yes. I agree. People who dare to look up the statistics about rape in Sweden--especially Malmo--are racists and need to be shunned.

andersonvom 10y ago

The values in the original PDF don't really add up [1]. It doesn't really change much, but it's still weird. If you apply the formula in the PDF to the listed values, they're all 1-5 points off: Each country’s value in each category is given the indicated weighting to achieve a country’s total score using the formula ((Visa Free Travel x 0.5) + (Taxation x 0.3) + (Perception x 0.1) + (Dual Citizenship x 0.1) + (Overall Freedom x 0.1)). [1]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vXSsukPDoqSwXPbR-FKtmRkZoiwHKZ1i7D_QFKhWvAk/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vXSsukPDoqSwXPbR-FKt...