I’m scratching my head at this comment because I thought EU passports were more powerful at this point. I thought the US has pissed off enough countries that there are many you can’t enter as a US citizen (admittedly mostly in the middle east, to countries I doubt most European citizens want to go either), but an EU passport will get you basically anywhere you want to go. Was I wrong about that?
The most powerful passports in the world in 2023
- Japan (193 destinations)
- Singapore, South Korea (192 destinations)
- Germany, Spain (190 destinations)
- Finland, Italy, Luxembourg (189 destinations)
- Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden (188 destinations)
- France, Ireland, Portugal, United Kingdom (187 destinations)
- Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, United States, Czech Republic (186 destinations)
- Australia, Canada, Greece, Malta (185 destinations)
- Hungary, Poland (184 destinations)
- Lithuania, Slovakia (183 destinations)
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/world-s-most-powerful-passports/
Outdated, Japan has 189 and Czechia 187. Possibly other changes as well.
but an EU passport will get you basically anywhere you want to go. Was I wrong about that?
Depends on the country within the EU. Germans can go hassle free pretty much anywhere . Bulgarians on the other hand are going to struggle a fair bit more than an American.
German here. I had to go through a 3-month process with multiple, personal visits to the Chinese embassy in Frankfurt to be allowed one-time entry to China for a couple of days. Visa fee was 120€, IIRC.
Huh, according to another reply, German passports are supposed to be more powerful than a US passport. Maybe that’s not taking into account visa requirements though. No idea if a US passport would have the same issue with China either. Thanks for sharing your experience!
China probably isn’t on the list for visa-on-arrival for any country. Whether the process and the attached fees differ according to where your passport is from, I don’t know. I assume that is the case tho.
Well, it’s China, a country known for its heavy surveillance. They’re not gonna let anyone in just like that.
Yeah. I heard I even got preferential treatment because I got invited by my cousin’s wife’s family to attend the wedding.
Also the roaming fees were insane. I still have the pricing information message:
Translation: Welcome to China! Here, you can receive calls for 1.59€ per minute + possibly at least 0.50€ per minute (depending on carrier), send text messages for 0.59€ and receive text for free. Data roaming for 12.29€ PER MEGABYTE (automatically capped at 59.50€ per month) may be possible. Good travels wishes o2.
This means they estimated that 60€ was the cutoff before people that rack up MBs without thinking about roaming fees start seriously complaining when seeing the bill.
