United Arab Emirates passport

What the United Arab Emirates passport actually gets you

The United Arab Emirates passport opens 187 of the 198 destinations we track, which is 94% of them, and ranks 1 of 199 worldwide. Those 187 are the places you can book a flight to this week: visa-free, visa on arrival, an eTA, or an e-visa you fill in online. The other 11 want an application, an appointment and a decision before you go, and that is the difference between a trip you can plan and one you have to apply for.

It is not evenly distributed, and no passport's is. Europe is where this one is strongest, with 45 of 45 countries open. North America is where it runs out, at 21 of 23. If your plans lean toward the second, the paperwork is the plan.

Getting in is not the same as being allowed to stay. The most common allowance is 90 days, granted by 88 of the destinations open to you, and the longest is 180 days in Armenia. That ceiling is what makes a nomad visa worth the trouble: it is the difference between leaving every few months and living somewhere. It is also why a travel insurance policy that expires at 90 days quietly stops matching your life.

The number nobody looks up is the one pointing the other way. 93 of the 198 passports we track can enter the United Arab Emirates without a visa. Mobility is not a property of a document, it is a relationship between two countries, and the gap between those two figures is usually more revealing than either on its own.

Wherever the United Arab Emirates passport takes you, it does not carry health cover with it. Entry rules and hospital bills are separate problems, and only one of them is settled at the border. What cover you actually need abroad.