Why Everyone Should Get This Essential Travel Tool

For the fifth time in my life, I’ve had to apply for a new passport. 

My current passport remains valid for another three years, but only three or four pages are available for stamps in the 54-page booklet.  

I knew my travel schedule would start up pretty quickly in 2023—the U.S., Portugal, and Ireland are teed up first—and I didn’t want to stumble upon a moment where I’d have to rush to apply for a new travel document because mine had no more spaces for passport stamps. 

So, I made use of the holiday season, when travel was light and lines at the U.S. Embassy here in Prague were thin. I showed up with my docs, paid my fee…and I had a new passport surprisingly fast—in less than a week. 

I have passports on the brain at the moment for a couple of reasons: The new Henley Passport Index for 2023 is out, and I am heading to New York in a few weeks to serve as a moderator for a panel on passports at a Henley-sponsored event. (Consulting firm Henley is the global expert in passport rankings as well as the various programs that allow you to buy a passport or overseas residency through legal investment schemes.) 

I imagine most people think of a passport as just a travel document—a little book that lets you legally cross sovereign borders on vacation or business. And, of course, that’s exactly what they are…outwardly. 

But they also represent something entirely different: financial opportunity. 

Which, I know, seems like an odd characteristic to assign to a passport.  

Nevertheless, it’s true. But I’ll come back to that in just a moment. 

First, the winner of the World’s #1 Passport in 2023 on the Henley Passport Index is Japan, which has claimed the top slot five years consecutively now. A Japanese passport gives its holder unfettered access to more of the world—visa-free—than any other nation’s passport. 

America, once a top dog, pulls up at #7 now, tied with Switzerland, Norway, the Czech Republic and a couple others. Ahead of the U.S. are 16 other nations with stronger passports. All are in Europe or Asia. 

The U.S. ranks where it does because Americans increasingly need to apply for visas to visit various countries. And that’s the case because countries are increasingly imposing visa restrictions on Americans as a way to retaliate against America for this, that, and whatever else has aggrieved them about Washington, D.C. We can expect the number of countries requiring visas for American travelers to increase in coming years, since that’s the trend. 

Now, as for the financial opportunity… 

Twenty years ago, my U.S. passport opened doors to financial services globally. I could easily open bank and brokerage accounts in New Zealand, Australia, all over Asia, Europe and the Middle East. 

Today, my passport causes all manner of challenges when I go to open bank or brokerage accounts because of something called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA. It’s one of Uncle Sam’s more nefarious little rules. It forces financial institutions around the world to go through all sorts of additional paperwork requirements when dealing with American clients…and if they don’t, they lose all access to American dollars. 

The upshot means that as a U.S. citizen who can only produce a U.S. passport as an identity document, I am regularly locked out of many opportunities. My Czech long-term residence visa has stepped in a few times to save the day, but still there are too many times where I’ve been told to scram because my passport was issued by Uncle Sam. 

That is lost opportunity, because there are many investment possibilities in the world that Americans simply don’t have access to that other nationalities do.   

I mean, when a Portuguese passport, for instance, allows unfettered access to banking and investing options across the 27-member European Union, but a U.S. passport doesn’t, then it’s clear the American passport holder has less financial freedom…and fewer investment and entrepreneurial opportunities globally. 

Which is one of the reasons savvy, high-net-worth investors—and even so-called mass affluent investors with a few million dollars in liquid assets—are increasingly pursuing second passports. It opens doors that a U.S. passport closes. They can legally use those passports instead of their U.S. document to legitimately show they are a lawful citizen of a non-U.S. country—and banks are typically fine with that. 

This is one of the reasons I am so determined to obtain my own second passport.  

I see it as a form of lifestyle insurance that allows me to legally live/work in some other country in the event life goes pear-shaped in America…and as a form of financial freedom, which is increasingly important to me as America soon begins a defining fight with its massive debt.  

Having a second passport when that time comes could prove very beneficial to your wealth.