Passports are just travel documents. But what is the correlation between passport power and wealth of a country? The richest countries in the world also have very well respected and powerful travel documents.
To find this we did a comparison, connecting wealth of a country and passport power and we found some interesting results.
Earlier, we did a study on best passports in the world looking into travel freedom without any hard visas. We used this data for the comparison with GDP per capita.
GDP per capita shows how much economic wealth is attributed to each individual citizen thus measuring prosperity. It is nothing but GDP output divided by population.
Out of 25 richest countries and found that only 10 richest countries (40%) had powerful passports to travel. This goes on to show wealth of a country not necessarily tied to passport power. Often the smallest countries in land mass and population are the most affluent countries in the world.
- Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Singapore, Switzerland are the richest countries in the world also having world’s most powerful passports
- The Arab countries Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait had the weakest passports despite having significant wealth. These countries also hostile towards dual citizenship.
- Brunei is not only small and wealthy, it also has a strong powerful passport. Brunei passport is the only passport in the world that has visa free travel to all biggest six countries in the world without any hard visas. These are United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, EU schengen states. No other passport in the world has this benefit.
- United States has a 20 trillion economy and no country can match its economic power, wealth and also a strong passport.
Wealth vs Passport Power
These are the 25 Richest countries with strong passports sorted by wealth
| Country | GDP Per Capita Income | Passport Rank |
| Monaco | 168,000.00 | 30 |
| Qatar | 128,702.00 | 81 |
| Macau | 118,098.00 | 42 |
| Luxembourg | 114,825.00 | 10 |
| Liechtenstein | 98,432.00 | 23 |
| Singapore | 98,014.00 | 5 |
| Brunei | 81,612.00 | 28 |
| Norway | 74,065.00 | 4 |
| United Arab Emirates | 70,262.00 | 23 |
| Kuwait | 69,669.00 | 79 |
| Ireland | 69,139.00 | 8 |
| Switzerland | 64,988.00 | 6 |
| United States | 62,518.00 | 6 |
| San Marino | 60,651.00 | 32 |
| Netherlands | 59,105.00 | 10 |
| Saudi Arabia | 55,859.00 | 86 |
| Germany | 54,983.00 | 9 |
| Iceland | 54,753.00 | 18 |
| Sweden | 54,474.00 | 2 |
| Taiwan | 52,960.00 | 45 |
| Australia | 52,191.00 | 14 |
| Austria | 51,936.00 | 13 |
| Denmark | 51,643.00 | 1 |
| Canada | 51,546.00 | 13 |
Passport power vs Wealth
These are the 25 richest countries sorted by passport power.
| Country | Per Capita Income | Passport Rank |
| Denmark | 51,643.00 | 1 |
| Sweden | 54,474.00 | 2 |
| Norway | 74,065.00 | 4 |
| Singapore | 98,014.00 | 5 |
| Switzerland | 64,988.00 | 6 |
| United States | 62,518.00 | 6 |
| Ireland | 69,139.00 | 8 |
| Germany | 54,983.00 | 9 |
| Luxembourg | 114,825.00 | 10 |
| Netherlands | 59,105.00 | 10 |
| Austria | 51,936.00 | 13 |
| Canada | 51,546.00 | 13 |
| Australia | 52,191.00 | 14 |
| Iceland | 54,753.00 | 18 |
| Liechtenstein | 98,432.00 | 23 |
| United Arab Emirates | 70,262.00 | 23 |
| Brunei | 81,612.00 | 28 |
| Monaco | 168,000.00 | 30 |
| San Marino | 60,651.00 | 32 |
| Macau SAR | 118,098.00 | 42 |
| Taiwan | 52,960.00 | 45 |
| Kuwait | 69,669.00 | 79 |
| Qatar | 128,702.00 | 81 |
| Saudi Arabia | 55,859.00 | 86 |
