Which countries can someone from Sweden freely travel to that someone from the Netherlands can't?

12/1/2019 5:46:52 AM

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 🙂

2/2/2015 7:45:30 AM

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.

1/31/2015 11:02:41 AM

So basically it’s not just two countries that make up the difference. For example, as as Dutch citizen you can get a visa-on-arrival in Mozambique, while Sweden can’t. Sweden has visa free entry into Vietnam, while Dutch don’t.

Rather than list all the differences, I’ll point to these two Wiki pages:

Visa requirements for Swedish citizens

Visa Requirements for Dutch Citizens

They list all the countries and the rules for the citizens – visa free, visa-on-arrival, and so on. It also means it’ll continue to be more up to date as the rules change (eg this past year Kazakhstan granted a year of visa-free entry to British citizens – go figure!)

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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