passportAlicia Nicholls Barbados has the best passport among Caribbean countries. This is according to Henley & Partners’ recently published Visa Restrictions Index 2016 in which Barbados has topped Caribbean countries in the ease of which its citizens/passport holders can cross international borders.

Barbadian citizenship/passport ranked 26 out of the 199 nationalities (passports) evaluated with its passport holders enjoying visa-free access to 141 countries. Last year Barbados ranked 24 on the Index with visa-free access to 138 countries.

Henley & Partners is the global leader in residence and citizenship planning and produces its Visa Restriction Index in cooperation with the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The index, which it has produced for the last ten years, ranks countries’ citizenship/passport according to the total number of other countries which they can access visa-free.

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50 responses to “Barbados Passport Tops Caribbean Passports”

  1. Anthony Davis Avatar

    And our AG wants is to start selling our passports? Utter nonsense!


  2. maybe it is widely accepted because who would want to go to the effort of faking one.


  3. Let’s be real here
    How many if the 138 countries would we want to go to and how many do business with Barbados?????

  4. Sunshine Sunny Shine Avatar
    Sunshine Sunny Shine

    What’s the purpose of having the best passport in the Caribbean when our reputation as a well-managed economy is being criticized unfavourably. Soon our passport will not mean squat as bulletins are put across the travelling world that the island is infested with crime and corruption.


  5. Here Here!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Off topic David
    Any reason the Cahill and speaker posts have been relegated to banner status or is it just my browser.


  6. @ Davis
    Skippa…. right now the Government would sell our asses if they could find a way to get the income from the deal….
    Oh Wait …. they are ALREADY selling our asse(t)s …. even though it is the Canadians and Trickidadians who are getting the income….

    Look for it…
    Passports for sale..
    No questions asked…
    Visa free for 141 countries…
    Get yours today.


  7. The low life Lowe should take out an advert in the NY times “Passports for Direct Foreign Investment no strings attached”

  8. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    The Barbados passport is a very reliable document that any international criminal would be happy to carry because of the good reputation that Barbados enjoys but that is declining. That is because, in the past to my certain knowledge, an applicant for a Barbados passport was scrutinised to ascertain that he was legally entitled to carry that document. Of course we had a few non-nationals that escaped because some of them were able to obtain an authenticated Barbados birth certificate and there were some justices of the peace and lawyers who were willing to lie on oath that they know the person. But they weren’t many.

    Our standing in the world will decline if or when our intellectually challenged politicians open a market to sell this country’s passport. International criminals would be able to use a Barbados passport to evade the laws of other countries. Eventually our array of visa abolition agreements would be compromised.


  9. The reason that it is reliable is because it probably was printed at the Canadian bank note company . A lot of your money was produced in Canada, so if it makes BT feel better Cowen etal are not coming to take your money they are coming to get back what once was ours

  10. Violet C Beckles Avatar
    Violet C Beckles

    Best Passport for Money Laundering I. D .


  11. There is no doubt the Barbados passport is a respected document compared to many. We need to continue to work to protect it. Selling citizenship is a very dangerous game to play.


  12. Why do intelligent Barbadians fall for this semi-literate exceptionalism nonsense? We must rise abo e the silliness of Barbadians punching above their weight.
    We are a little over-crowded not natural resources, a basic education and blessed with good weather and beaches.


  13. Hal you are correct. Barbados is led by a coterie of men and women who are delusional.

    The majority of these individuals have become incoherent, and suffer from severe amnesia. Such individuals have become detached from the everyday travails of Barbadian citizens.

    They probably know to a dollar how much money resides in their bank account on a daily basis; but remain unaware of the suffering of the poor, the middle classes and the state of the nation.

    The links below are testament to how far the country has slipped:

    http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2016/03/02/watch-those-strip-clubs-symmonds/
    http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2016/03/02/ag-we-are-not-as-bad-as-trinidad/

  14. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    I agree, now if it was a totally visa free passport for every country in the world including the US, I would be definitely impressed. As it is, being thisclose to bankruptcy should take immediate precedence instead.


  15. @Exclaimer

    Thanks for reminding us about what the AG is reported to have said in Parliament yesterday. What an asinine statement. If gun read serious crime is in the increase it rubishes his statement on crime. Rising gun crime is an alien event to Barbados and has already disturb the stable country with a pristine reputation that was the envy of all. Now he resorts to comparing Barbados to Jamaica and Trinidad.

    JA

  16. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Is Kerrie Symmonds pretending he does not know who owns the strip clubs or that he does not rub shoulders with the owners.

    Why dont Symmonds, Mia Mottley and Adriel Brathwaite pass the information on the identity of the club owners on to the DPP Charles Leacock, who also rubs shiulders with the strip club owners, re human trafficking of these young females.

    After all, human trafficking is an international crime.

    What game is Symmonds playing with the public now, that is why these hypocrites for politicians cannot be trusted.


  17. @Lawson March 2, 2016 at 9:47 AM #

    “……. Cowen etal are not coming to take your money they are coming to get back what once was ours”

    I don’t think Cowan will be coming back soon. nor will DelMastro until he serves his time.


  18. David please call the Attorney General by his correct name.JA what! He is an umitigated Jack Ass.The worst AG we ever had.He even out do Guy Smiley – Dale Marshall in the area of incompetence and stupidity.
    There is a close finish between Brathwaite & Kellman for the position of Clown Prince of Cabinet.I have never come across anyone in the history of Cabinet Government in Barbados talked the crap that emanates from the mouth of these two jokers.Even the late Lionel Craig from the BLP made more sense in his pronoucements as a minister when he was alive and in a BLP cabinet.
    The unfortunate situation is that the alternatives would do no better. Under the BLP the minorities continue to dominate.Likewise under the DLP the same minorities still dominate.It seems the third party the situation would be similar or even worse because reading from their proposals,the elitist,conservative approach that they highlight as the strategy for the party will render the Black population to go further under.
    At this juncture in the history of Barbados the Black majority is in a very precarious position with the outlook bleak.Would there be a repeat of 1937 when we saw our position hopeless and some of our people did something about?
    The time has long passed where Black Barbadians should have had not only political power but financial and ecnomic power as well.Our Black politicians have failed us miserably.
    After reading and researching the political life of Grantley Adams,Errol Barrow,Sir Hugh Springer,Frank Walcott and others,I cannot and will not consider them heroes.I consider them a bunch of weak kneed Black jokers who used the plight of Black Barbadians for their own personal agendas to gather fame and fortune.They ought to be banished from the annals of our history.A bunch of jack assses.

  19. Anthony Davis Avatar

    Bush Tea, you are absolutely right! However, if we start selling them we’ll not even be able to go next door to some of our neighbours when the USA, Canada, the EU, etc. give notice that they are no longer legal tender in their countries.

  20. de Ingrunt Word Avatar
    de Ingrunt Word

    @Negroman, what an awesome intellectual pronouncement at “After reading and researching the political life of Grantley Adams,Errol Barrow,Sir Hugh Springer,Frank Walcott …I consider them a bunch of weak kneed Black jokers who used the plight of Black Barbadians for their own personal agendas to gather fame and fortune.”

    Absolutely inaccurate insight in my view …. but history can be read many ways so all opinions can be considered.

    Pray tell who would be your true heroes from Bajan history?

    And what in particular made those varied gentlemen mentioned ‘weak kneed Black jokers’?

  21. Colonel Buggy Avatar

    Barbados Passport is the Best in the West, open doors for you!. Yet after some 70 years we are seeing the USA is now asking Bajans and other Caribbean nationals, who want to work on farms in the USA ,to have a valid visa. Perhaps when Cuba becomes a full fledged bosom pal of the USA, citizens of that country wishing to work on farms in the USA, will be extended the courtesy the ex British colonial Caribbean once enjoyed.

  22. de Ingrunt Word Avatar
    de Ingrunt Word

    The citizen by investment program can certainly have an impact on the sanctity of a once ‘pristine’ Bajan passport and in ways beyond the obvious as it relates to persons actually legitimately getting one under the program.

    More problematic is the forged documents. Let’s be clear that there is the ability to make very authentic forgeries on any PP document if you have the right equip and skills.

    So the problem becomes if more high net worth mid-east folks legitimately buy our citizenship and thus a Bajan PP it then becomes more reasonable for mid East folks to own such a document under that program, not so.

    Ipso facto…enter possible terrorists forging said document and being able to make a very ‘legitimate’ case that its VALID.

    Either way, the US and others are going to be ahead of this so this program despite its efficacy by many other countries could be a real source of great pain for our lil BIM on the international scene.

    As others have said it would be pound wise….

    Our gov’t is wise enough to eschew any cheap money like dat. Fah real. They are not totally stupid. They gotta travel to (after they leave office) so they don’t want the headache surely.


  23. You guys are a bunch of self loathing self hating Jac asses. Nothing said good about this country you love to hear. Anything bad seems to give you an intellectual ejaculation of the mind which for the most part many here on BU have ever experienced.
    The time is fast approaching when the kind of society all hoped for will be presented on your shores one which is fascist and does not give a care or damn what society thinks. Take note America asked for change and the fascist Donald Trump has entered blowing his Trumpet wanting to take their Country back to which many of the intellectual in the U SA has agreed
    Don’t say it can’t happen on this tiny 166sq miles


  24. We have already seen the issues being encountered by St. Kitts, Grenada, St. Lucia and a few others who have run afoul of the US and Canadian authorities.

  25. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Caswell Franklyn March 2, 2016 at 9:12 AM
    “Our standing in the world will decline if or when our intellectually challenged politicians open a market to sell this country’s passport. International criminals would be able to use a Barbados passport to evade the laws of other countries. Eventually our array of visa abolition agreements would be compromised.”

    So in which countries would these Bajan-passport carrying criminals be committing those crimes? Do you really feel immigration and border control authorities in developed countries care two hoots about any person carrying a Bajan passport?

    The possession of a Bajan passport even with visa waiver arrangements in place is no guarantee you would be allowed into the country without major security checks should alarm bells go off like a man with Eastern Europe or the Middle East or North Africa background and in possession of a Bajan document.

    Where would these people carrying a Bajan passport through economic citizenship be ordinarily resident? Would they be residents of Barbados?
    Bajans should stop fooling themselves about their importance in the world.
    Any decent law-abiding rich person has no need to buy a passport from places like Barbados whose law enforcement and justice systems have recently acquired a halo of doubt over them in the international arena.

    Why would any decent, law abiding non-Barbadian person want to give up their passport for a Bajan issued travel document unless the person intends to resettle in Barbados permanently? If the person is a real high-net-worth individual (HNWI) why not apply for British or Canadian or American citizenship if he or she is not already a holder of such prestigious document which allows them to travel the world with little immigration constraints, including Barbados.

    How can a country whose top brass, both past and present, are known to have given protection from justice to a well-established fraudster and tax evader in the form of Greenverbs Parris ever feel it can avoid the radar of international observation of its poor and seemingly corrupt governance?

  26. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    de Ingrunt Word March 2, 2016 at 4:48 PM #

    If you want heroes look no further than these three individuals who against the odds achieved….Joseph Rangel,London Bourne and Rachel Pringle,melanin rich….they all were part of the system and owned plantations and slaves but they joined,used and beat the existing system of the time.

  27. de Ingrunt Word Avatar
    de Ingrunt Word

    @Vincent, absolutely well stated…there are many names one can identify and the original selection obviously had its detractors and proponents as I am sure we all recall.

    My issue was the strong denunciation by the blogger thus my query on his heroes.

    I think it is impractical to review the lives of Black leaders and consider them lackeys or ‘weak kneed’ with such perfect 20-20 hindsight from these very different times. Whatever they gained for themselves they achieved tremendously more for an entire nation and its people.


  28. @Vincent Haynes,
    Rachel Pringle was a prostitute and brothel owner. London Bourne was a slave owner. If your sole criterion for being a Hero is blackness (melanin rich) then the present heroes fulfil that criterion. What’s the matter with you people? You are a bunch of self haters.What are you trying to achieve?


  29. @Miller,
    Barbadian Passports have real standing internationally. You may not want to accept this; because of your hatred of your own country and its people, but it is true.


  30. Miller,
    Why don’t you like your own people?


  31. @sss,
    “The fault…lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.”


  32. do any wunna know how many carribbean islands govts wish they were given such prestigious recognition in the international media,, we have jackasses talking the same ole political rhetoric and not one of them have ever served in the Barbados military or even step foot in the political arena but oh shit they know how everybody is corrupt but themselves I can easily say that many of those who point fingers are themselves tax evaders and bold face cheaters for many years to them I say physicians heal thyself


  33. Go Republic and watch the same Barbados passport begin to lose its value.


  34. With the national security problems throughout the world. Travel will become very difficult for Barbadians, Visas will be required and be tough to get for any travel outside the Caribbean. These brilliant politicians travel with diplomatic passports. There are stringent Visa requirements for countries using these passports. The politicians in Barbados are becoming more and more like corrupt leaders in Africa. Sell out for trinkets.


  35. To those who don’t believe that foreign countries especially Canada, USA and Britain don’t care about passports. Think again they start tracking you before you get off the flight. Some islands need visas to go to Canada and others don’t. ask yourself why.

    Really how many of these passports do they expect to sell, i’m sure not many. What is the real reason? Is it to allow Drug smugglers and other criminals to run and hide out around the Caribbean? Keep hanging out with wild dogs and you sure will catch fleas.

  36. Sunshine Sunny Shine Avatar
    Sunshine Sunny Shine

    Alvin Cummins

    Stuuupse who you think the ourselves are? Leadership is both vertical and horizontal. When it becomes myopic, the trickle down effect manifests itself in the way society functions. Barbados has too many divides, Alvi, for Barbados to function under well establish systems.


  37. @Alvin

    you and those of your ilk must understand that constructive criticism, feedback what you want to call it is how Barbadians advocate and agitate for better. It should be encouraged. In fact those of us who critique activities in our space of life do so out of a love for country. Surely there is enough evidence to support the call for Barbadians to become more engaged in protecting civil liberties and all that goes with it. These 30 people in the House of Assembly are not blessed with any unique ability that we should resign to all their decisions.

  38. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Alvin….go breathe and take a read of what DBLP leaders like to use their slimy lawyers to do in secret behind the backs of the electorate, as though they have no right to know. Arthur was also famous for this, so is Fruendel, am sure it’s a blight you will also condone.

    I did not write the article Alvin, I only posted, so dont start up your nonsense about me hating anyone…your default justification for enabling criminality.

    Secret laws?
    Added by George Alleyne on March 3, 2016.
    Saved under Local News

    A revelation last night by Queen’s Counsel Hal Gollop that he was part of a four-member panel set up by the former Barbados Labour Party administration to draft a new republican constitution for Barbados in the 1990s, has caught at least one political scientist by surprise.

    Gollop’s admission came during an Ellerslie Secondary School-organized discussion on the topic, Should Barbados become a Republic – A Cross to Bear or Crown to Wear?

    Declaring his support for the idea of Barbados moving to republican status, Gollop said: “I was one of four persons who were selected . . . to prepare a draft constitution for the last Government.”

    “The other persons were Professor Paget Henry, one of the original drafters of Barbados’ Independence Order; Sir Roy Marshall; and Professor Simeon McIntosh – all deceased.

    “I am the one left to tell the tale of that effort of the draft constitution.”

    “That’s news to me,” said fellow panellist Cynthia Barrow-Giles, political scientist and UWI, Cave Hill lecturer. “I am a little shocked by that.”

    Barrow-Giles said she was not questioning the calibre of the persons involved.

    “These are good people, but the fact is that we don’t know . . . that that kind of development is actually taking place in private.

    “And for somebody who believes in direct democracy and the participation and the right of people to participate in the process, I’m concerned about what appears to be a sort of a backdoor sort of thing,” she added.

    Barrow-Giles expressed fear that what she said happened prior to Independence had been repeated.

    “That’s a problem for me in relation to Barbados, because the Barbados Constitution, the 1966 constitution, was also drafted in private.

    “So the constitution again is being drafted in silence in private by a few persons. Skilled as they were,” she added.

    Moderator David Ellis chipped in, “That was then. We don’t know what is happening now”.

    He added: “While it is true that you have to have a group of people working behind the scenes, the nation itself, the country, should at least be aware that that kind of work was being done”.

    Ellis went on: “What is significant to this discussion is this, is the degree to which the work that was done then may well inform the decision that has been put on the table already, or the move towards republican status now”.

    He mused: “It would be interesting to find out whether in the judgement of the Government, it is necessary to have a completely new group of lawyers sit down and look at the constitution, or whether they would go back to the work which had been done by you [Gollop] and the others to achieve that objective”.

    Gollop responded: “I don’t quite support the view that the drafting of any constitution took place in secrecy, because the drafting of a constitution is an academic exercise”.

    He contended, however, that despite a few persons being selected to draft the
    document, there was input from Barbadians far and wide.

    “One has to consider what preceded that exercise, and there was a prolonged Constitution Review Commission that went the length, the breadth of Barbados, went to England, all sorts of places to get the views of Barbadians about what they would like to put in a constitution.

    “So that the drafting of the constitution by however many people in a private place is not something that one should look at in exclusio from what took place before that attempt at drafting,” he said.

    The attorney went on: “I do not agree that nobody knew what was going on because there was a raging debate across the length and breadth of Barbados about moving towards a republican state.”


  39. The only time a Barbados passport comes under scrutiny is when there is a black hand attached to it

  40. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    Lawson….are starting up idiot Trump’s race baiting, watch people dont start calling for your ban….Barbados is a black majority country, so 90 percent of the time, a black hand will be holding it’s passport and all the I migration officers worldwide know this….live with it.

  41. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    Alvin

    I am at a loss at your posting….who am I supposedly hating and for what…..

    I just praised 3 excellent local entrepreneurs of another era.

    Why disparage brothel keeping,it is the oldest proffesion in the world and is practised legally in right thinking countries.e.g Germany,Nederland and here in the Caribbean Aruba,Bonaire,Curacao,Saba,St.Eustatius,St.Maarten to name a few.

    Slavery,Indentureship,Child labour,Flogging….were all heinous aspects of that era,that everyone of that time participated in to a greater or lesser extent….one could not be truly succesfull in bussines otherwise.


  42. Well Well exactly all I was saying is that you are scrutinized more than whites with the same passport . Blacks in the US and else where cry that they are treated different because of color …I agree and you say I am race baiting…yeh whites in this case. It seems you can never be happy whether you are agreed with or not . Such is woman…

  43. Colonel Buggy Avatar

    What was it that Errol Barrow said. “Who will buy my white sand and who will buy my grey sand?
    Remember some years ago, probably in 1993, when Clinton invited the Caribbean leaders to the White House, and they began with the infantile diatribe of whose island is better than whose.
    Almost 25 years later and we are still mouthing off whose passport is better that whose.

  44. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Alvin Cummins March 2, 2016 at 11:37 PM #
    “Barbadian Passports have real standing internationally. You may not want to accept this; because of your hatred of your own country and its people, but it is true.”

    So Alvin, which passport do you proudly flash when entering or exiting Canada? Aren’t you a Canadian citizen by naturalization? Do you use your Bajan or Canadian travel documents when you do your globetrotting jaunts as you are so proud to boast about?

    I don’t ‘hate’ Barbados but just demanding that it performs better given the billions invested in its social capital. There is a tremendous need for improvement in its justice and political governance systems and which cannot be denied given the blatant awareness that the likes of Leroy Greenverbs still walks the once proud and pleasant land of Bimshire.

    The same way you find the ‘average’ Bajan to be a dirty stinking person when its comes to littering and dumping of garbage so too do I. You are definitely ashamed at the way your own hometown is treated as a dump for all kinds of reject both material and human.

    The same way you find the average ‘Baje’ to be a sponger on the State’s welfare system in wanting everything free from cradle to university to the grave so do I.
    Does that make you into a hater of Barbados?

    Barbados had long ago been a well-off country when compared to others. Its passport has always been a well sought-after travel document. Since 1992 Barbados was ranked as the No.1 developing country and at No. 20 on the United Nations Human Development Index, just after Israel.
    How come it is now at No.59?

    But like its once coveted currency and economic stability its Passport would soon be converted to “Junk” just like its Sovereign Bond status. And it will happen sooner than you think under your present government.

  45. Colonel Buggy Avatar

    millertheanunnaki March 3, 2016 at 7:22 PM #

    How come it is now at No.59?

    And many a Bajan ,living in Barbados, and feeling the everyday pains ,and seeing the everyday decay, has given Barbados a rating Number, 57 units lower.

  46. Colonel Buggy Avatar

    Colonel Buggy March 3, 2016 at 9:38 PM #
    That should have read “57 units higher”

  47. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Colonel Buggy March 3, 2016 at 9:38 PM

    LOL!! I will settle for 57. That correction should make the ac’s of BU a set of happy bunnies. At least they should now have something to brag about. Bulgaria probably stole a march or two despite the ATM scam.

    When Barbados was at No. 20 it was managed primarily by hardworking committed people, many of whom had only a 7th Standard education. This was at a time when Singapore was a backwater ex-colonial outpost and rated certainly not in the top 50. Now the same backwater ex-colony is at No.11.

    Today Barbados is “managed” by a superfluity of ‘university-attended’ mandarins whose talent of commonsense has been wasted instead of being venerated in the recognition of Thoth and used to liberate the masses from the heavy burdens of slavery and colonialism.
    Is it fair to say that only about 10 years ago Bim was placed somewhere in the top 30-40? What has happened in such a short period of socio-economic time?
    Is it now a case of ‘Forward Never, Backward Ever’?

  48. Colonel Buggy Avatar

    On the front of the Barbados Passport, like that of Jamaica, St Lucia, Dominica etc,etc. is the inscription EC- Caribbean Community. If we are to mimic the European Community, where is our Touch One , Touch All attitude ? Should we, and by we I mean the Caricom leaders and Draughtsmen, not be lobbying those Countries which now demand a visa for some countries within Caricom , to respect the Sovereignty and Unity of Caricom? Instead we continue this Mine better than Yours attitude, which Bajans are famous for, and which is one of the major reasons why we are despised by many other Caribbean people.
    Perhaps the initials and wording on the front of these passports should be replaced by ” MM-Disneyland “

  49. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Colonel Buggy March 4, 2016 at 2:31 PM
    “Perhaps the initials and wording on the front of these passports should be replaced by ” MM-Disneyland ”

    LOL!!

    Are you saying the passports, in the global scheme of things, are worth just much as their Mickey Mouse currencies?

    Only foreign rich people with criminal intent would be interested in buying a Bajan passport.
    Why should a law-abiding well-heeled British person be interested in a Bajan passport that would ‘handicap’ his ability to travel as he wishes and with the need to apply for visas for much too many countries around the globe.


  50. millertheanunnaki March 4, 2016 at 5:46 PM #
    At one time I was holding both British and Barbados Passports. I ‘ve traveled extensively. No prizes for guessing which passport I have made redundant?

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