Just 17% of Japan citizens hold passport

TOKYO: Only around one in six Japanese citizens hold valid passports, fresh data has shown, with the number of residents travelling abroad slowly recovering but still below pre-pandemic levels.

The latest rate is far below the half of Americans with passports, a level that has soared from around five percent in 1990. As of December 2024, there were 21.6 million valid Japanese passports in circulation, representing around 17.5 percent of the overall population, the foreign ministry said on Thursday. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, about a quarter of Japanese people owned valid passports.

The country´s travel document is tied with neighbour South Korea´s passport as the world´s second strongest after Singapore, allowing visa-free entry to 190 destinations, according to this year´s Henley Passport Index.