Putting Lebanon’s New Biometric Passport Into Perspective: It’s Still Useless

It is no secret that the Lebanese passport is completely and utterly useless. In light of the new biometric passport, we thought we’d put into perspective how useless the new passport still is.

Lebanon recently moved to an updated biometric passport which means it’s a combined paper and electronic passport that contains biometric information (fingerprints, signatures, etc.) that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers.

The Lebanese passport costs $40 for a year or $200 for five years. This gives you access to 39 countries without a visa. And the other countries? Well, we all know the traumatic bureaucracy and lengthy procedures to get a visa anywhere else.

Check out the below list for information on other passports, their cost, and how many countries you can go to visa-free.

The world’s most powerful passport, Germany: $87 for adults and lasts 10 years. You visit 177 countries without a visa.

UK: £72.50 (approximately $89) and also lasts 10 years for an adult with access to 175 countries visa free.

France: €96 (approximately $100) with access to 175 countries

USA: $110-$130 with access to 174 countries visa free

Australia: $288 and lasts 10 years. This is slightly pricier but grants you access to 169 countries without a visa.

Lebanon’s access to 39 countries means that our passport ranks the same as Congo (where a passport costs $20), Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. I mean, even North Koreans can visit 42 countries!

Of course, we are delighted that Lebanon is moving forward in this respect, however we really wish the new passport rules came with more benefits for us poor Lebanese folks.

So to sum it all up…

It’s 2017 and the Lebanese passport is still shit

— Khalil (@glassofgin33) January 31, 2017

Please note that we have gathered this information from a report published by The Telegraph, the individual foreign embassies located in Beirut, and individual government websites.

1