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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawVisa NewsHas the US Passport Lost Its Travel Utility?

Has the US Passport Lost Its Travel Utility?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the US Passport and the travel options associated with the US Passport. I have read a lot in recent weeks, actually in recent months, people have been saying, especially in the US context "Oh the US Passport has lost all of its utility for travel purposes", or "You can no longer use the US Passport like you once could". True, as a practical matter, the US Passport was for lack of a better term, a very powerful passport. One was able to just get on a plane and go to wherever they wanted to go; most countries would either admit those folks Visa free or visa-on-arrival. It wasn't the most powerful passport in the sense of countries that will let you in Visa free. I believe Singapore still holds that title although depending on the year, Ireland is actually a pretty versatile passport as well as I think Switzerland and New Zealand is another one that has a really again, strong is kind of an odd word, but a passport that allows a lot of visa free travel. 

So the reason for this video is, again this has been bandied about throughout the response to COVID internationally that "Oh, the US Passport has lost its utility." In a sense yeah, because of the international travel restrictions and who knows how this is exactly going to play out. I would urge folks who are looking at these things and who feel this way or who think that this may be an issue, understand this has happened to virtually every passport. The insurance requirements to most countries around the world are incredibly stringent compared to what they once were. Arguably this isn't going to change much at least for the immediately foreseeable future so when you are sort of looking at it as "Oh my gosh! The US Passport has lost something", well in same the sense that you can use the analogy of "a rising tide raises all ships", perhaps a "lowering tide lowers them" as well. The US Passport has lost utility, lost its range of countries it can be admitted to Visa free. Yes that is probably true under the current circumstances but I suspect if you look at many of the other passports out there, the same can be said, especially as a practical matter. Yeah you may be able for example Thailand has brought back on board their Visa Exemption scheme so you can come in Visa free to Thailand but you have still got to get a Certificate of Entry; you still have got to deal with things like quarantine, at least for now, and that is still there and that extra documentation might be there for a while yet. Again, we can't really predict the future and I really hesitate to do so because I got burned a lot trying to do that about a year ago thinking that this whole thing would have ended sooner. 

The thing to take away from this video, okay it may be fair to say the US Passport has lost some travel utility. It is probably also fair to say virtually every passport around the world has as well.