Which countries can someone from Sweden freely travel to that someone from the Netherlands can't?
The Visa Restrictions Index says that people with a passport from the UK, Finland and Sweden can travel freely to 173 countries. People from Belgium, Italy and The Netherlands can travel to 171.
I am interested to learn which countries make up that difference, but I can't find any additional informational about the data this list is based on. Which countries can someone from Sweden travel freely to that I (as a Dutchman) can't?
Best countries to have a passport from
UK, Finland, Sweden (number of visa-free countries 173)
Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, USA (172)
Belgium, Italy, Netherlands (171)
Best Answer
The link in the question is actually the index from 2013. The numbers for 2014 are respectively 174 and 172, which is confirmed by the wikipedia pages linked by Mark Mayo: Swedish passport, Dutch passport.
However, the answer to my question seems to be: it's not true that a Dutch passport gives less access to countries than a Swedish passport. Inspecting the tables in the same wikipedia pages learns that:
The Netherlands have free travel rights to Mozambique and Kazakhstan over Sweden, and Sweden has free travel right to Vietnam and Rwanda over the Netherlands.
So they actually tie in number of countries. The index however, is about "countries and territories". So the difference must lie in different access to certain territories.
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More answers regarding which countries can someone from Sweden freely travel to that someone from the Netherlands can't?
Answer 2
It's hard to lookup what the answer was as of 2015, but as of 2019 the tables have turned with the Netherlands having one more visa-free country (Mongolia) than Sweden. Otherwise the two passports have similar visa-free/e-visa access rights.
The latest Henley Passport Index disagrees, as it still puts Sweden (186) above the Netherlands (185). However if we look at the underlying data, we can see the following list of "visa required" countries for the Netherlands:
Afghanistan Algeria Angola * Azerbaijan * Benin * Bhutan Burundi Cameroon Central African Republic Chad China Congo (Dem. Rep.) Congo (Rep.) Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Cuba Djibouti * Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ghana Guinea India * Iraq Liberia Libya Mali Myanmar * Nauru Niger Nigeria North Korea Oman * Pakistan * Russian Federation Saudi Arabia South Sudan Sudan Syria Turkey * Turkmenistan Vietnam * Yemen
And the following list for Sweden:
Afghanistan Algeria Angola * Azerbaijan * Benin * Bhutan Burundi Cameroon Central African Republic Chad China Congo (Dem. Rep.) Congo (Rep.) Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Cuba Djibouti * Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ghana Guinea India * Iraq Liberia Libya Mali Mongolia Myanmar * Nauru Niger Nigeria North Korea Oman * Pakistan * Russian Federation Saudi Arabia South Sudan Sudan Syria Turkmenistan Yemen
(the * symbol signifies countries that issue e-visas to the above-mentioned passport holders)
The differences are thus:
- Mongolia is visa-free for the Netherlands, as mentioned above
- Turkey issues e-visas to Dutch citizens, but is visa-free for Swedes
- Vietnam has the same policy as Turkey
In practice the differences between e-visas and schemes such as ESTA are quite blurry, therefore whether or not Swedes enjoy more visa-free countries is a matter of debate :)
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