Why only half of Americans own a passport

Roughly half of Americans hold a valid passport, compared with around 86% of people in England and Wales. For one of the richest countries in the world, that gap surprises a lot of British travellers.

The number has climbed fast in recent decades, but it still lags well behind the UK, Canada and much of Europe. So why do so many Americans never get a passport? The answer is a mix of geography, holiday allowance, cost and culture.

From under 5% to around half

Around 1990, fewer than one in 20 Americans held a passport. Today the US State Department reports more than 160 million valid passports in circulation, which is roughly half the population.

The biggest jump came from a change in the rules, not a sudden love of travel. Until the mid-2000s, Americans could visit Canada, Mexico and much of the Caribbean with just a driving licence and a birth certificate.

That ended with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative:

• January 2007: passports became mandatory for Americans flying back from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
• 2008: the cheaper US passport card was introduced for land and sea crossings to Canada and Mexico.
• June 2009: the rules were extended to land and sea crossings.

Millions of Americans who had never needed a passport suddenly did, and ownership has kept rising since.

1. The US is huge, and has almost everything at home

From Manchester you can be in Spain, France or Italy in about two hours. From Kansas City, two hours on a plane barely gets you out of the Midwest.

The US also packs in a remarkable range of holidays without a border crossing. There are beaches in Florida and Hawaii, skiing in Colorado, deserts in Arizona and Utah, national parks, and big cities like New York, Las Vegas and New Orleans. For many families, a domestic trip offers the variety a European would cross several countries to find.

2. Americans get far less holiday

The US is one of the few developed countries with no legal right to paid annual leave. Holiday is left to employers, and many workers get only around two weeks a year, often less in their first jobs.

UK workers, by contrast, are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid leave, which is 28 days for a full-time employee (bank holidays can count towards this). With so few days off, many Americans save their time for visiting family or a short domestic break rather than a long-haul trip abroad.

3. Getting a passport costs real money

A first-time adult US passport costs around $165 once the application and processing fees are added together. For a family of four, that can easily pass $600 before a single flight is booked.

First-time applicants also usually need to apply in person at an acceptance facility, such as a post office, with an original birth certificate. For people with no firm travel plans, the cost and hassle are easy to put off.

4. Income and habit play a part

International travel from the US usually means a long and expensive flight, so passport ownership tends to follow income. It is generally higher in wealthier, coastal states with big international airports, and lower in more rural areas.

Habit matters too. In Britain, a week in Spain or Greece is a normal family holiday, and many children travel abroad young. In much of the US, a holiday abroad is seen as a bigger, once-in-a-while event rather than an annual tradition.

How the UK compares

At the 2021 Census, around 86% of people in England and Wales held at least one passport, and about 76% held a UK passport. That puts Britain well ahead of the US.

Figures are approximate and come from each country's latest available official data, so they cover different years.

The US is not the lowest, though. Japan's rate sits below one in five, and in large countries such as China and India it is lower still.

Flying to or from the UK? Know your rights

Whatever passport you hold, UK and EU passenger rules can protect you. Under UK261 and EU261, nationality does not matter: what counts is where the flight departs and which airline operates it.

You may be entitled to up to £520 per passenger if your flight:

• departed from a UK or EU airport, or
• arrived in the UK or EU on a UK or EU airline,

and it arrived more than three hours late, was cancelled at short notice, or you were denied boarding. That covers Americans visiting Britain as much as Brits heading to the States.

Delayed or cancelled flight? Check your claim with FlightDelayClaim in minutes to see what you could be owed.