A Bhutanese passport is a document which authorizes and facilitates travel and other activities in Bhutan or by Bhutanese citizens. Foreign travel passports are issued to citizens of Bhutan for international travel by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is valid for all countries unless otherwise endorsed.[2]
In the Kingdom of Bumthang, which constitutes a part of modern-day Bhutan, feudal passbooks or dzeng (Dzongkha: ཛེང) were issued to court messengers in order to travel from kingdom to kingdom.[2] Diplomacy and mediating were crucially important measures in pre-modern Bhutan chiefdoms.[3]
Foreign travel passports are issued to citizens of Bhutan for international travel. New Bhutanese passports are issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1988, Bhutanese passport holders abroad were ordered to surrender their passports upon their return to Bhutan.[4]
The current version of the Bhutanese passports were first issued around 2006.
Languages
The passport contains text in English and Dzongkha.[5]
As of 2024, Bhutanese citizens have visa-free or visa on arrival access to 52 countries and territories, ranking the Bhutanese passport 92nd in the world according to the Henley Passport Index, together with Chad and Comoros.
In 2013, a spoken article on the English Wikipedia was created for the Bhutanese passport by user KuchenZimjah,[6] which was interpreted as humorous, spawning an internet meme. The audio file was deleted in 2015 following debate on the article's talk page.[7][8]
