Are Australian passports expensive in comparison to other western / developed countries?

Question

I decided not to renew my passport before starting this trip because passports are very expensive in comparison to my income and my low travel budget.

But when asking people I find their passports in other countries are much more affordable than in my country. Typically Australian passports are in the range of roughly double the price friends have to pay in other developed countries or other western countries.

• Ordinary adult passport:
  AUD $238 (USD $212; EUR 161)

• Adult frequent traveller with more pages:
  AUD $358 (USD $320; EUR 243)

Is this a rip-off? Are most passports in "rich" countries so expensive or are they roughly half the price as the impression I have so far?

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It's true I overlooked passport validity. That's the most important thing I've learned with this question. Assuming all passports have the same number of "visa pages" I should instead ask what the "price per year or decade of validity" is.

Answer 1

First, consider the value - it's a biometric, secure, popular passport. It requires fewer visas than some other countries, and so the price isn't the only consideration here.

However, let's look at other countries using biometric passports, and their costs, using some of your list from the comments:

• USA - $110 (According to LessPop_MoreFizz) (EUR 83)
• NZ - $144 and up, depending on urgency. (USD 112; EUR 85)
• South Korea - US$55.00. (EUR 41)
• Switzerland - CHF140. (USD 150; EUR 114)
• Netherlands - 49.33 Euros. (USD 65)
• UK - 77.50 quid. (USD 120.50; EUR 91)
• France - 89 Euros. (USD 117.50)

so comparatively, much of a muchness, although EU ones do seem to be a bit less.

As a New Zealander, a bigger issue is the length of validity - ours are only 5 years, which in some places means 4.5 years as you need 6 months left on your passport to enter certain countries. We used to have 10 years, and there is quite a public drive to bring back the 10 year validity period.

Answer 2

Comparing with the Italian Passport

Both ordinary and frequent traveller Australian passports do indeed seem to cost more than the Italian passport.

As of the 19th May 2010 the Italian government issues one single passport format for ordinary citizens. This is an electronic passport, with biometrics, consisting of 48 pages with a 10-year validity. As of the 24th June 2014 it costs 116EUR, (73.50EUR of processing fee + 42.50EUR for the actual cost of the booklet). This gives the following cost breakdown:

• 11.6EUR per year of validity
• 2.42EUR per page

We can now compare these values with the ones resulting from the Australian passport cost breakdown:

• Ordinary: 238AUD - ca. 166EUR
  • 16.6EUR per year of validity
  • 4.74EUR per year of validity
• Frequent traveller: 358AUD - ca 250EUR
  • 25.0EUR per year of validity
  • 3.73EUR per page

So yes the Australian passport wins on all criteria.

Answer 3

They sure are! Since I first asked this about 5 years ago, it has now become something easy to Google and is specifically covered by quite a few websites:

• Australian passports are the ‘most expensive’ in the world
• Most powerful and most expensive passports 2018
• The world's most expensive passport is...
• Australian passports are now the most expensive in the world with only Syria and Turkey coming close to the $282 charged - so why does it cost Aussies so much?
• Australian Passports Now Most Expensive In The World
• The most expensive passport in the world revealed - and it isn’t the UK
• Australian passports are the ‘most expensive’ in the world

Answer 4

The passports in Sweden are only 350kr, that equates to approximately 60 AUD. Even with the 5 year validity coming into question, doubling the cost it is still half the price. I couldn't believe how cheap the Swedish passports were when I checked - having recently paid for a new Australian one, I feel somewhat ripped off!