Word.ws English Dictionary

passport privilege

passport privilege noun: the ability of a person to travel internationally without visas, additional scrutiny and other hindrances, based on their nationality (represented by their passport); in particular, the collective advantage granted to citizens of wealthy, Western countries to do so.

Noun

passport privilege (uncountable)

  1. (neologism) the ability of a person to travel internationally without visas, additional scrutiny and other hindrances, based on their nationality (represented by their passport); in particular, the collective advantage granted to citizens of wealthy, Western countries to do so.
    • She (Jessica Nabongo) has fulfilled her dream of visiting every country in the world, becoming the first Black woman to do so. "Passport privilege is a thing, and having a US passport helped me, but having a Ugandan passport helped as well," she told the BBC.2020 January 1, Hannah Ajala, “What does it mean to be a black traveller?”, in BBC
    • Which means that people with "passport privilege" — AKA, the ability to travel freely from country to country — may end up feeling like the stars of some massive international adventure, while people whose travel is more restricted feel like perpetual interlopers.2023 November 29, B.A. Parker, Christina Cala, Leah Donnella, “Travel is supposed to expand your horizons...but it's complicated”, in Code Switch, NPR

Origin of passport privilege

From passport + privilege.

Questions about passport privilege

What does passport privilege mean?
Passport privilege means the ability of a person to travel internationally without visas, additional scrutiny and other hindrances, based on their nationality (represented by their passport); in particular, the collective advantage granted to citizens of wealthy, Western countries to do so.
What part of speech is passport privilege?
Passport privilege is a noun.

Words near passport privilege in the dictionary

  1. passport bros
  2. passport card
  3. passport cards
  4. Passport Island
  5. passport prison
  6. passport privilege
  7. passportable
  8. passported
  9. passportification
  10. passporting
  11. passportization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: passport privilege (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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