Are Australian passports expensive in comparison to other western / developed countries?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 8 Aug, 2023
- |
They sure are! Since I first asked this about 5 years ago, it has now become something easy to Google and is specifically covered by quite a few websites:
- Australian passports are the ‘most expensive’ in the world
- Most powerful and most expensive passports 2018
- The world’s most expensive passport is…
- Australian passports are now the most expensive in the world with only Syria and Turkey coming close to the $282 charged – so why does it cost Aussies so much?
- Australian Passports Now Most Expensive In The World
- The most expensive passport in the world revealed – and it isn’t the UK
- Australian passports are the ‘most expensive’ in the world
Comparing with the Italian Passport
Both ordinary and frequent traveller Australian passports do indeed seem to cost more than the Italian passport.
As of the 19th May 2010 the Italian government issues one single passport format for ordinary citizens. This is an electronic passport, with biometrics, consisting of 48 pages with a 10-year validity. As of the 24th June 2014 it costs 116EUR, (73.50EUR of processing fee + 42.50EUR for the actual cost of the booklet). This gives the following cost breakdown:
- 11.6
EURper year of validity - 2.42
EURper page
We can now compare these values with the ones resulting from the Australian passport cost breakdown:
- Ordinary: 238
AUD– ca. 166EUR- 16.6
EURper year of validity - 4.74
EURper year of validity
- 16.6
- Frequent traveller: 358
AUD– ca 250EUR- 25.0
EURper year of validity - 3.73
EURper page
- 25.0
So yes the Australian passport wins on all criteria.
The passports in Sweden are only 350kr, that equates to approximately 60 AUD. Even with the 5 year validity coming into question, doubling the cost it is still half the price. I couldn’t believe how cheap the Swedish passports were when I checked – having recently paid for a new Australian one, I feel somewhat ripped off!
First, consider the value – it’s a biometric, secure, popular passport. It requires fewer visas than some other countries, and so the price isn’t the only consideration here.
However, let’s look at other countries using biometric passports, and their costs, using some of your list from the comments:
- USA – $110 (According to LessPop_MoreFizz) (
EUR83) - NZ – $144 and up, depending on urgency. (
USD112;EUR85) - South Korea – US$55.00. (
EUR41) - Switzerland – CHF140. (
USD 150;EUR114) - Netherlands – 49.33 Euros. (
USD65) - UK – 77.50 quid. (
USD120.50;EUR91) - France – 89 Euros. (
USD117.50)
so comparatively, much of a muchness, although EU ones do seem to be a bit less.
As a New Zealander, a bigger issue is the length of validity – ours are only 5 years, which in some places means 4.5 years as you need 6 months left on your passport to enter certain countries. We used to have 10 years, and there is quite a public drive to bring back the 10 year validity period.
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Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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