Visa-Free Countries Checker
Pick a passport and see where it goes without a visa — with visa on arrival, eTA and e-visa kept separate, because they are not the same thing.
Nothing you type here is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere. It all runs in your browser.
Four categories, and the difference between them costs money
- Visa-free. You show up, they stamp you in. Nothing to apply for, nothing to pay, though you may still be asked for a return ticket, an address and proof you can fund the stay.
- Visa on arrival. A visa, issued at the border, usually for cash in a specific currency. It is not a right — it can be refused, it can run out for the day, and some airlines still want to see something before they board you.
- eTA or e-visa. An online permission you must hold before you fly. This is the category that strands people. An ESTA, a UK ETA, a Canadian eTA, an Indian e-visa: miss it and you are turned away at check-in, at your own cost, in your own country.
- Visa required. An embassy, an appointment, documents, and weeks of lead time.
What this tool does not tell you
It does not tell you how long you may stay, and the difference between 14 days and 90 days is the whole trip. It does not cover transit rules, which are their own category of trap — a change of planes can need a visa even when you never leave the airport. It does not know about your criminal record, your previous overstays, the stamps already in your passport, or the six months of validity almost every country wants to see on the passport itself. And it says nothing about work, study or residence: every category above means tourism.
Why the numbers here are lower than the passport indexes you have seen
Two reasons, and both are deliberate. The first is that the big indexes count around 227 destinations, including territories, dependencies and places with their own entry rules but no seat at the UN. This list has 201. The second is that where a category was genuinely uncertain, the entry was pushed one step towards stricter — a probable visa-free was recorded as visa on arrival, a probable visa on arrival as an e-visa. A reader who arrives over-prepared has wasted an hour. A reader who arrives under-prepared has lost a flight.
The schemes that are moving right now
Three things are in motion and will date this page faster than anything else. The UK now requires an ETA from travellers who never needed anything before, including EU citizens. The EU's own equivalent, ETIAS, has been announced, delayed and re-announced more than once and will do the same to everyone entering the Schengen area visa-free — if you are reading this after it starts, assume Schengen has moved from visa-free to eTA for you. And China's unilateral visa-free entry is a trial scheme whose list of nationalities and whose end date have both changed repeatedly.
Check it properly before you book
Two sources actually decide whether you fly: the destination country's own immigration or foreign ministry site, and the airline, which carries the fine if it boards someone who is refused entry and therefore checks harder than you expect. Your own foreign ministry's travel advice is a good third. A table on the internet, this one included, is a starting point for the question, never the answer to it.
Questions people ask
How current is this list?
The compilation date is printed on the tool itself, under the results. Visa rules change with no notice and sometimes overnight — a diplomatic row, an election or a security incident can flip a country from visa-free to visa-required in a week. Treat anything you read here as a prompt to check the embassy, not as a substitute for checking it.
Is an eTA the same as a visa?
Legally no, practically yes in the one way that matters: without it you do not board. An eTA is a pre-screening — you apply online, pay a small fee, and usually get an answer in minutes. A visa is a document issued by a consulate after an application. The failure mode is identical, which is why this tool puts them in their own category rather than counting them as visa-free.
Why is the rank different from the passport index I saw?
Because it is a rank inside this tool only. It compares the 56 passports in this dataset against the 201 destinations in this dataset, with the conservative categories described above. It is useful for comparing two passports here; it is not comparable to a published index and is not meant to be.
Does visa-free mean I can work there?
No. Every category on this page means tourism, and in most countries a short business visit — meetings, a conference — is a separate question with a different answer. Working on a tourist entry is a fast way to a ban, and remote work for a foreign employer sits in a grey area that more countries are writing rules about every year.
Is my choice of passport sent anywhere?
No. The whole dataset is embedded in the page and the lookup happens in your browser. Nothing about what you selected is uploaded, logged or stored.
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